DOMINION EXPORTS.

Northern Advocate, 26 August 1924, Page 5

DOMINION EXPORTS.

GOOD SEASON COMING.

NEW COMPETITORS

CLOSER APPLICATION URGENT.

(Special to "Northern Advocate.") WELLINGTON, This Day.

"I want to make reference to the coming season," Mr Massey said at Levin yesterday. "You have strong indications of spring here and right along the Jine I was pleased to notice it. Of last season there is nothing to complain respecting the go'od prices for meat and wool. The cereal crop failed and we are sending out of the country money in consequence to import very large quantities of wheat from Australia. I do n'ot wish to pose as a prophet, but I predict we will have a real good return this coming season, and if Ave have to import during next season it will be a very small quantity as compared with last season. I do not think there is any possible getting away fr'om the fact, that we will have another good season for wool. It may not be quite as good as last season, because the sheep of the world are increasing in number, but so also are the pe'ople who use wool. "I am a bit anxious about dairy produce," continued the Prime Minister. "Lamb has opened well and I think it will hold for sometime. Reports have reached us that our dairy produce quality has slipped back. I liope there is n'ot mueh in it. I have beard it complained that the quantity of preservative put in the butter was having a bad effect. I hardly think it is entirely right, but I would like to impress on farmers the need to keep up the quality. I know that the hot, dry summer of last year had a good deal to do with it, but if we get a normal season we will be back t'o the old position. When I was in the Old Country people were asking if they could depend on a regular supply. The position wants watching closely. So far as it was possible for me to judge competition will be very much keener in the future than in the past. I do not mean in the coming season, but I can see other countries coming in. South America is coming in, though to use a common expression it is not in the same street as ourselves. Russia is coming in, and though their quality is not good it is improving. In England they put our quality next to Danish, though for that matter I prefer ours. I believe it is well worthy of second place, but I see no reason why we should not go on improving and take first plaee. I remember sitting next to a man from Denmark at a banquet in England and he said we had beaten them in quantity and would beat them in quality.

"There is one point we have never made enough of—we have never seriously attempted to establish a good market for bacon or pork. I have never seen a side of our bacon at Smithfield. Denmark sends out more bacon than butter and American exports £27,000,000 worth of products of the pig. There is an opening there ready waiting for us.

"There is a great deal to be done," Mr Massey added, "and we have to do it if we are to maintain the prosperity of this country, and especially we have to look to the quality of what we produce. We have still huge areas of

land not under production, land producing no more than half what it mil in a dozen years time. If the market stands we have to prepare for more competition and for lower prices."