DAIRY PUSH IN BRITAIN

Poverty Bay Herald, Volume LV, Issue 17640, 2 December 1931, Page 12

DAIRY PUSH IN BRITAIN

N.2. BOARD AND THE CRISIS NOW OR NEVER FOR EMPIRE TRADE LONDON, Oct. 30. The last of the General Election returns are now coming in, and people are beginning to get over the shock of the most amazing electoral happening in English history. There has been no wild,rejoicing and no hysteria; England is still as phlegmatic as ever, but people arte walking about in that slightly dazed atmosphere which descends upon us when we achieve the wholly unexpected.

It is now clear that the Government majority will be in the neighborhood of 500, and it is generally anticipated that the new Parliament will be able to make a swift, approach to the problem of readjusting our adverse trade balance.

From the point of view of thin Empire dairy producers, the wonderful manifestation of the public’s determination to see Britain through the crisis has been a striking justification of the joint Homo and Empire “Pull Together” movement of the past nine months. The appeal to broad Empire sentiment and the mutual advantages of inter-Empire trade has been on right lines.

Indeed, the formation of the Empire Dairy Council, bringing together English agricultural organisations, the stock breeders, the Home dairy farmers and the Dominion producers, has proved to be in a sense prophetic of the staggering happenings of the past few weeks. During the past few months while Britain lias been swiftly striding towards the goal of Empire trade, nothing has provided more graphic evidence of the menace of dumping than the constantly recurring press photographs of the landing of Russian and other foreign butter on the wharves of the Port of London, and no Empire (industry is, at the moment, better equipped to take advantage of the great surge of pat riot in feeling than the dairy industry. PUBLIC CONSCIENCE ROUSED Throughout the election there lias been abundant evidence of the awakening of the conscience of the public to its duty towards the Empire family. There lias been a vigorous voluntary pushing of Empire butter, cheese and other produce bv the retail trade. One chain of multiple shops in the North of England, which had previously traded exclusively in Danish butter, offered prizes to its branch managers for the most rapid development of trade in New Zealand butter, with astonishing results; and from all parts of the country come reports of grocers slocking, advertising and in other ways pushing Empire butter and cheese in preference to the foreign article In the benefits of ibis process New Zealand lias reaped a generous share. Thus is the “Pull Together” movement justified up to the hilt. Oiir overseas brethren will no doubt realise that there is a contra to the Empire goodwill on this side, and a limely reminder of this was given by Mr. J. 11. Maggs, the chairman of United Dairies, Ltd., in lii.s speech at the. company’s annual meeting. “I venture to hope,” lie said, “that in future our colonial friends on whose dairy products United Dairies spend millions a year will reciprocate by placing more uf their orders for (lie dairy machinery which we manufacture.” A CANARD EXPOSED

It was a happy thought that prompted the London management of the New Zealand Dairy Produce Board, in conjunction with the High Commissioner, to take immediate steps to allay any fear on tile part of the public that any restriction of imports of foreign butter which may occur in the readjustment of the adverse trade balance will unduly increase juices. Sir Thomas Milford expressed lis confidence that New Zealand, in common with other jwiits of the Empire, could so increase its contribution of food that the people of the Homeland would not sutler substantially, either in price, quality or quantity, from the effects of reduced foreign purchases. Reviewing the broader aspects of the Empire dairying industry, he pointed out that between 1927 and 1930 Empire butter production increased by upjiroximately 31 per cent., and in the first eight months of 1931 it just outstripped tlio foreigner, so that, with the Homo output, the Empire for the first time dominated the British market.

“ft is no exaggeration to say,’’ declared the High Commissioner, “that we are well on the way to the point where, with proper encouragement, Home and Empire farmers can supply the butter requirements of the Homeland.” If tlie Empire supplied, as it could, all tlitv butter requirements of the,Home market, we should put into Empire circulation something . like £29,CC0,0C0, which we are now sending annually to foreign countries in payment for butter. This would enormously increase the capacity of the people overseas to buy British manufactures.

If there are those in New Zealand and Australia who ever doubted the wisdom of tlie New Zealand and Australian boards in initiating tlie movement to secure u butter marking order so that blended foreign butters should no longer participate in the goodwill attaching to the Home product, they must surely now be convinced that the Empire producers were amply justified The ball is now at tlx* feet of the Empire producers, not only the producers of dairy products, hut those of wool, fruit, meat and canned goods. Now is the time for a. big broad-gauge push hand in hand with tlie British producers, to promote Empire goodwill. The dairy industry has led the way. Will other primary producers follow?