Notes of the Week

Northland Age, Volume 1, Issue 10, 11 December 1931, Page 10

Notes of the Week

the official opening of the new Whangaroa Dairy Factory at Kaeo, Mr. Grounds, whose connection with the marketing of our dairy produce gives his opinion special weight, urged the factory suppliers to aim at an even higher average grading of cream to enable the factory to turn out the maximum quantity of finest quality butter. In the present keen competition in the British butter market it was the finest quality that the Home buyers paid most attention to. This viewpoint is emphasised by the review of the market by Amalgamated Dairies, Ltd., issued last week. After pointing out that prices had steadily declined since October Ist, the review remarks that a feature of the London quotations for New Zealand butter had been that the margin between the finest and first grade had been about 5/ per cwt. instead of the customary 2/ per cwt. In England the finest quality foodstuffs always command a good market, and when prices decline the price of the finest quality declines less than the price of lower grades. * * * * * * 'J'HE far-reaching effects of international political movements is illustrated by a remark made by Mr. Leonard, a wellknown Auckland export butter merchant, in an interview we publish in another column. The outlook for butter prices, he said, depended largely on the result of the Disarmament Conference next February. The adoption of a policy of disarmament by the nations would improve the economic outlook enormously. But the failure to come to some agreement to gradually disarm, which would mean the maintenance indefinitely of the present attitude of fear and suspicion, might mean even lower prices for our produce. Our farmers in the North have therefore the most practical reasons for wishing for the success of the Disarmament Conference. All the principal nations of the world have in the most solemn way renounced war for ever as a means of settlingnational disputes, yet still continue to support huge armies and navies, and almost every week some application of science towards making warfare even more deadly and destructive is announced. Britain has given a generous lead that the other nations seem loathe to follow, though all admit the necessity for disarmament. But they all want the others to do it first. The evil effects of the war are not all worked out as yet. France clings to her armed forces as her only protection against a Germany grown powerful again ; the newly constituted nations as a defence of their hardly-won independence ; Italy to maintain the present dictatorship and as a check on France ; Russia to prevent interference with her internal affairs by the capitalistic nations of Europe. America is creating a great navy to defend her commerce from an attack no one wishes to make. All the nations seem fear-ridden, and unless they can muster up sufficient courage to trust one another, the New Zealand dairy farmer must pay through lower prices for his butter.