THE BUTTER MARKET

New Zealand Mail, Issue 1636, 8 July 1903, Page 63

THE BUTTER MARKET

(From a Correspondent.) LONDON, May 22. Willi grass-fed Continental and homeproduced butters coming into sight the remnants of the colonial season are falling into the background. Small quantities of New Zealand butter have been offered of late at, for choicest and finest qualities, 97 s to 100 s, and 92s to 935. The colony named looks like realising the ideal c-f Australasian butter sliipn-ei s to the United Kingdom, and all-tlre-year-round trade, for the afloats will not be finally don If. with till the end of June. Tho butter arriving then will probably go into cold store, to come cut again in Scptember-Ocfcober. New Zealand has to her credit for shipments during the 1902-3 season to these markets 178,753 c w t., again sis 152.060cvvt. for the previous season. From Glasgow comes the report that “New Zealand butters me et a very dragging sale, and are not valua when compared with Dutch and Siberian, which are quoted at 88s to 90s. The season, however, is practically over, and holders are anxious to clear before the advent of warmer weather." RABBITS. The frozen rabbit trade has held its own wonderfully well during the last six weeks of abnormally cold weather; now that the sun has come out we may expect to hear complaints from the marts, though so far the prognostications of alarmists have not been justified, by the way in which Australian and New Zealand rabbits have been going into consumption. Trade is slow, but up to the present nothing worse is to be reported-, except that a. few damaged parcels are to hand. I quote the following remarks from the "Fisli Trades' Gazette": "What with New Zealand shiomerits, to say nothing of the coming Tasmanian trade, added to the present Victorian, the English markets for imported colonial rabbits must have nearly reached the condition of saturation point. not to say the risk of being glutted. The idea of England being able to absorb any amount of rabbits is, as we have frequently pointed out, a fallacious one. The trade at the present time is in far from a healthy condition, and from what we hear is not likely to prove a very remunerative one in the coming season. The whole fault lies in the goods being practically bought. If they came on commission shippers would regulate and time their supplies, and if less rabbits came more profitable business would be done all round and less storage expenses incurred." This criticism (at the end of' the article) is a curious one, for if British buyers have sufficient confidence in a trade to buy forward, it is an indication, apparently, of the soundness and prosperity of the business.