NO SPECULATION

Te Awamutu Courier, Volume 52, Issue 3756, 15 May 1936, Page 7

NO SPECULATION

SELLING OF NEW ZEALAND BUTTER. GOVERNMENT’S HOPES. “We hope that the Government’s new marketing policy will eliminate gambling in New Zealand butter,” said the Leader of the Legislative Council, Hon. M. Fagan, in initiating the second reading debate on the Primary Products Marketing Bill- in the Council on Wednesday. “There are good merchants in Tooley Street as well as gamblers, and I believe we will be able to retain the assistance of the legitimate merchant,” added Mr Fagan. "We desire to see the elimination of the speculator who buys and holds butter in anticipation of a rise in the market. Frequently the manipulation of these speculators bring about a fall in the price of our butter on the overseas markets.” Mr Fagan said he had no destructive criticism to offer regarding the marketing of New Zealand produce in Britain. The Dairy Board had been responsible for much good work. He would say, however, that the Government Was confident that a vast improvement was possible. He believed the Dominion could very well follow the policy of Denmark, which did not permit the blending of its butter with that of other nations, and which dispensed with the intermediary between the producer and the English consumer. The big factor against New Zealand butter at the present time was that it lost its Identity in Tooley Street, in being blended with foreign brands and marketed as Empire butter. The Government hoped to double the quantity of butter which New Zealand was selling on the English market. It would endeavour to decrease the amount of foreign butter blended' with New Zealand butter. He had been informed in Glasgow that the only way butter could rqach that centre was by way of London. If that were so, the Government intended to correct so disadvantageous a policy of distribution. The Government would become the owner of the dairy produce of the Dominion and it would sell it to the best effect where and how it thought best. It would even divert vessels on the high seas with New Zealand butter from one port to another if this course was deemed advisable. It intended to place ambassadors for the Fernleaf brand on the road in Britain to make the butter of the Dominion more widely known. “I wish to commend the Government for its desire to stop gambling in New Zealand butter by Tooley Street,” said the Hon. E. R. Davis' (Auckland), who added that on a visit to London recently he had formed the opinion that the final seller of New Zealand butter was very little interested in what the producer received for his commodity.