NEW ZEALAND PRODUCE.

Manawatu Times, Volume XLVI, Issue 2077, 18 March 1922, Page 5

NEW ZEALAND PRODUCE.

QUESTION OF MARKETING Mr. W. Goodfellow, director of the N. Z. Co-operative. Dairy Company, who returned from a visit to America and Europe this week, told an interviewer that before he left London, a definite price-fixing scheme, had been established, which. if extending to embrace other co-operative companies would prevent speculation. Under existing consignment conditions, Mr. Goodfellow stated, London was a speculator's paradise. The defects in the present method of shipping produce on consignment were obvious to anyone who had an opportunity of gaining inside knowledge, and of watching the result of the greatest smash in produce prices ever experienced in the history of the Dominion. It was an axiom among speculators that no money was to be made on a high market, and. that, therefore the first thing to do to make conditions right for speculators' profits, was to smash the market by forcing sales of consignment butter and undercutting the market. It was not usual for butter to be sold at from 5/ to 10/ below the recognised market price, and further reductions were made as the general price fell. There was no doubt some of the. record returns obtained by the consignment houses this season, would be from those firms who broke the market. These people sold out quickly and let the market down, while those who held on in an endeavour to hold the stampede had ultimately to sell at a lower price. Tf they had all stood firm, factories would have realised greater values in excess even of the highest values secured.