COMMERCIAL

Nelson Evening Mail, Volume LXI, 15 June 1926, Page 2

COMMERCIAL

ENGLISH APPLE MARKETS

LONDON, June 11

Apple prices in, London and the provinces generally are easier. Many New Zealand Jonathans are arriving in soft conditions. Six thousand cases of New Zealand apples by the Port Victor sold at auction at Southampton, mostly ranging from 5s to 10s 9d per case. Jonathans brought 10s 6d to 11s 6d, Cleoipatras 12s, and Cox’s 13s to 16s. NEW ZEALAND BUTTER The Evening Post’s London correspondent quotes an attack by The Grocer on absolute dairy control, operating through storage and regulation of dairy produce. The Grocer states that New Zealand butter is never of better quality than when it is freshly made; that “New Zealand butter does not to-day enjoy the sarne popularity as in recent years” ; and that ‘‘the reasons are not far to seek.” A correspondent, who draws attention to the above remarks in The Grocer, also points out that New Zealand butter in London has quite recently risen from 168/. to 176/-; and that during the first five of this year the price of New Zealand butter has never been lower than the price of Danish butter by more than 26/-, while the average difference has been only 12/- or 13/-. During the corresponding period of last year New Zealand was sometimes as much as 58s below Danish. Does this (he asks) imply that present storage practices are at least a big improvement on their predecessors? The same point was touched at a meeting in New Plymouth called by the Free Marketing League. Mr Hine, who had attacked absolute control by the New Zealand Dairy Producers’ Board, was asked why Danish butter did not now get the big price margin above New Zealand butter that it used to. Mr Hine replied: “How is it that Australian butter for the first time in history has reached the level of New Zealand?—lmprovement in Australia, deterioration in New Zealand.” .