OUTLOOK FOR BUTTER

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXXVII, Issue 23619, 1 April 1940, Page 8

OUTLOOK FOR BUTTER

The concern shown by a group of producers at Cambridge about the butter situation in Great Britain is more than justified by news appearing this morning. Traders are attacking the rationing system in vigorous language, declaring that stocks are piling up in warehouses while the public is showing a preference for the margarine that sells so much more cheaply. However, while the actual rationing system is being assailed, it is obvious that the retail price is a much more serious factor than the limitation to eight ounces a week per head. Even in wealthy areas the official allowance is not being consumed. While milk, meat and flour are being heavily subsidised to keep the prices down, a spokesman for the Ministry of Food has said in regard to butter "it was questionable whether artificially keeping down the price of an article for which there was an adequate substitute was justifiable." New Zealand should take very serious notice of that statement, especially of the phrase, "an adequate substitute." applied to margarine. It directly contradicts the claims for butter, pressed by this country for many years, at heavy expense. New Zealand cannot afford to let this menace to the dairying industry go any longer uncontested- It is not, at the moment, a-question of the price paid to New Zealand for the butter. It is true the difference between approximately 112s sterling per cwt., f.0.b., and 1455, the wholesale price in Britain, appears altogether too great. There is room to ask whether even wartime costs demand this margin, or whether a profit is 'being made out of the butter. Meantime, however, it is even more important to take action against the danger of butter losing ground in public estimmation, which it will be difficult, if not impossible, to regain after the war. The Minister of Marketing should move at once, and vigorously, in defence of the dairy industry.