USE OF MARGARINE

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXXVII, Issue 23618, 30 March 1940, Page 12

USE OF MARGARINE

,TEEND IN BRITAIN CONCERN IN THE WAIKATO BUTTER MARKET THREATENED [BY TELEGRAPH —OWN CORESPONDENT] CAMBRIDGE, Friday The effect which the increasing consumption of margarine in England would have, on the sale of New Zealand butter in the future was the cause of considerable concern at the annual meeting of the Cambridge branch of the New Zealand Farmers Union this evening. _ ,

A remit covering the position was moved by Mr. Mervyn Wells as follows: . "That this meeting respectfully asks the Minister ol Finance, the Hon. W. Nash, to endeavour to arrange a longterm agrcemem; in which Great Britain will agree to take our butter and cheese so long as we continue our arranged redemption of loan moneys and interest payments. The loan moneys were borrowed for the purpose of developing New Zealand, on the understanding that the resulting products could be marketed in Great Britain. "The matter is urgent v as for some months past the British" Government has. as a war measure, been weaning its public from butter to margarine. This will mean at the end of the war the New Zealand dairy farmer will have to sell his goods in England at a very low figure. This cutting of prices will result in the British farmer invoking the operation of the restrictive legislation 011 imports which Sir Dorman Smith has had enacted in England, and which legislation he stated at the Sidney 1938 conference he would operate until the British farmer obtained a profitable figure. Unless some long-term agreement can be negotiated, the outlook for the local dairy farmer and for New Zealand is very grim." The remit was seconded by Mr. J. S. Archer, and Mill be sent on for the ion of the conference of the Waikatu sub-provincial council of the Farmers' Union.