DAIRY PRODUCE PRICES

Otago Daily Times, Issue 20087, 2 May 1927, Page 8

DAIRY PRODUCE PRICES

FAULT OF SPECULATORS. 1 BOARD’S POLICY SUPPORTED. MR H. E. HOLLAND’S VIEWS. (Pee United Pbess Association.) WELLINGTON, April' 30. Mr H. E. Holland, M.P., Leader of the Opposition, is delivering a series of addresses in various North Island towns, in the course of which he is expressing his views on the dairy control question. Mr Holland said that when a vote was taken in June, 1923, 71 per cent, of the suppliers recorded themselves as being in favour of the compulsory clauses of the Bill, and the Labour Party supported the Bill. He claimed that the position which had arisen recently was not due to the operations of the board, but to the work of speculators and to >the manner in which supplies had been held in storage prior to the arrival of the new season’s supplies. The fact that the butter had been stored was used by the speculators to discount its value and bring down its price. In some Instances people were advised not to use stale New Zealand butter, but to use fresh Danish instead. As soon as fresh New Zealand butter was available at a stated, price the speculators proclaimed the splendid quality of the stored butter, and tried to use it to get the new season’s butter down to 140 s. The policy of certain speculative interests was to force the prices down, and then buy in large quantities to enable them to repeat the operation later. He reviewed the appointment of Mr Stronach Paterson as the Government's representative on the London Agency, and contended th-t Mr Coates was behind Mr Paterson, and that the attitude of the latter was that of the Government. Ho strongly condemned the appointment of three Tooley street representatives to act with the London committee in forcing prices, and said he had seen It stated that: “These Tooley street men, while supposed to be acting in the interests of the board and the consumers, had been buying heavily in Argentine butter in anticipation of a rise on the market which they themselves were endeavouring to create." Mr Paterson had now resigned, but in the meantime the damage had been done. From the first he (Mr Paterson) had taken up an antagonistic attitude towards control, and had done everything to assist the opposition to it. He reflected the desires of Tooley street, and his moves behind the back, and without the knowledge of the board, were apparently designed to undermine the control party. The Government had let the board down badly. The Prime Minister interviewed the agents of Tooley Street without consulting Mr Grounds, the chairman of the board, who was there in London. Mr Grounds had offered to be present at the meeting; but was not invited. Afterwards Mr Coates stated that ho hHd asked the deputation if it wished Mr Grounds to be present, and the members said they did not want to see him. Mr Coates acquiesced, and did not invite Mr Grounds. The whole deputation had been arranged behind the back of the London agency and the chairman of the board. Mr Coates’s action seemed designed to keep Mr Paterson in a position, where he was doing incalculable harm to the marketing of New Zealand produce. The Labour Party suggested that arrangements should be made with the cooperative distributing organisations in Britain to undertake the marketing of our produce. Some of these endeavoured t 0 eliminate many of the intermediate charges that now stood between the producer and the consumer, and, in any case, it was fitting that the products of the co-operative factories in New Zealand should be handled by the co-operative distributing institutions of New Zealand should also open up negotiations with the British Government for the establishment of a food purchasing council through which the produce of New Zealand could be sold to the British consumer. Proposals on these lines had been considered by a recent conference of the British Labour Party, when, on the motion of Mr J. R. Clynes, resolutions were carried in favour of the British Government instituting the bulk purchase of food supplies and raw materials in the dominions and elsewhere, either by Government monopoly or by organisations acting under its control and supervision, so as to secure stable prices, and also in favour of the control and cheapening of the transport of food supplies to Britain. Arrangements of this kind would constitute the best form of British preference. Reciprocal undertakings could bo made, the British taking our primary products and we going to Britain for secondary products, such as machinery, motor vehicles, etc. To-day we were sending large sums of money to America _ ana Canada for machinery, motor vehicles, and other commodities, and those countries were taking very little from us. Consequently, the balance of trade was heavily adverse to us. In the case of our transactions with Britain the balance of trade was more often in our favour than against us. In any case, our marketing must be organised along lines that would eliminate the elements that gambled with the people’s food supplies. The board must be upheld against Tooley Street and manipulators and speculators, and also against the methods of Mr Coates’s Government.