WOOL, BUTTER, AND CHEESE.

Otago Witness, Issue 3467, 24 August 1920, Page 8

WOOL, BUTTER, AND CHEESE.

The control cf our chief primary products during the war period may not have been all joy for producers, but it will be admitted that good prices, compared with pre-war rates, were paid by the Imperial Government, and doubtless some producers would welcome a continuance of guaranteed payments. The outlook to-day is not too clear. The position regarding wool, emphasises several arresting factors whicii cloud the immediate future. For instance, the big "carry-over" of Imperially-owned wool looms large. The Home Government is filling all the channels of supply to the manufactories at prices jointly satisfactory to them as owners as well as to growers—the latter having an interest in respect to half-profits on sales to civilians. Manufacturers are fully engaged working up fine-wools, the demand for same being strong, so insistent, indeed, that coarse wools are piling up. Thus we have the incoming season's new clips to consider. The foregoing is not cheering to owners of wools lower than 46's quality. Of course, the Imperial Government may benignly allow us to take a hand in feeding the mills, as it would never do to slump the market and foolishly allow buyers to have a merry time at the expense of growers and the.- Imperial Government. There may, too, come a change in the fashions, and after all the Australian clip . this season cannot be up to its usual standard or bulk as largely as usual. We live in hopes that some arrangement may be come to by the New Zealand and Home Governments, whereby our wool growers will not be penalised in realising their clips this season in the Dominion. In respect to meat : here, indeed, is confusion. One .section of producers in the North Island apparently demand free markets for their dairy products but not for meat, while southern graziers would grant export licenses to any strong meat-buying combination which might happen along, having an eye to the value of competition. _ Our friends in the north would do without American competition, yet they must well know that the fact of the American markets being; open must increase the price of New Zealand lamb. There are at the present moment some 90,000,000 people in America, the majority of them who know not New Zealand lamb. Think of it. America at the moment is the best market in the world and some of us would have none of it. We turn in our quandary to dairy products. Here matters seem fairly serene. All the world wants butter-fat, and no dairyman can be located who wishes to jolt the communities' excellent taste, provided, of course, they have the dollars to plank down. We have Home cheese buyers on the spot, or their agents, while the C.W.S. looks forward to handling a share of the goods. It has been suggested that Toofey street mercants may go.to any price to outwrit the C.W.S.*s representatives, and that local consumers will fare badly, but there is nothing in that contention. It is immaterial to consumers who get the dairy products once it leaves these shores. Their consolation is the tardy knowledge that producers are winning all along the line and that they—the consumers—have the privilege of paying dear for their cheese and butter. The position in respect to butter apparently wants clearing up. Producers are adverse to treating with the Imperial Government, and desire a free market. We cannot understand what good a free market at Home would be to New Zealand dairy farmers when the retail price is fixed. Surely a price equal to the Home controlled retail price, less actual shipping and selling charges, should be good enough for them. We do not wish it to be inferred that this was actually offered, but it might have culminated had producers deigned to treat ere turning down the Imperial Government's initial offer.