MARKETS OVER-SUPPLIED

Taranaki Daily News, 6 March 1933, Page 9

MARKETS OVER-SUPPLIED

BUTTEIR AND MEAT POSITION STATISTICAL FIGURES WORSE. CONSUMPTION OF BUTTER GOODS. MEAT MOVING VERY SLOWLY. By Telegraph—Press Assn.—Copyright. Rec. 6.30 p.m. London, March 4. While official discussions about butter restrictions are proceeding the statistical position is going from bad to worse. According to the Empire Marketing Board’s figures, imports of butter from the Dominions in January and February were 869,650 cwt., compared with 784,400 cwt. in the same period of 1932, so that although consumption remains exceedingly good—one trade authority describes

it as the best ever known—stoclcs in cold storage are steadily mounting. Under these conditions nobody is able to make money out of butter. The present prices are hardly equal to the cost of production. Considerable quantities of bought butter are arriving for which the importers have pai. considerably more than it is now worth, and brokers and commission agents are writing' to trade newspapers complaining that their commissions have fallen by 50 per cent, while expenses are unchanged. In connection with consumption it is gratifying to learn that Nev/ Zealand’s efforts in Yorkshire have been eminently satisfactory. One large multiple shop firm says that as a result of the campaign its week’s sales at Bradford exceeded the normal amount by a ton. The meat trade is also suffering from over-supplies, and as 1,500,000 carcases of sheep and lamb are afloat from Australia, New Zealand and Argentina compared with 900,000 in March, 1932, there is little prospect of an early recovery in prices.

Unlike butter, the cheapness of meat has not improved sales. Experts are puzzled to account for the result decline in consumption, but the influenza epidemic and snowstorms delaying distribution in. the , country, districts are partly responsible The.' market for frozen rabbits is slightly easier owing to prospective early arrivals of large Australian and New Zealand shipments, but they are expected to meet a good demand owing to their high quality and the fact that English rabbits so far are not up to the best-standard, being mostly thin and plain. ■

A writer in the Poultry and Rabbit Trades Chronicle strongly advises shopkeepers to take colonial rabbits, which it describes as as near perfection as they can be, adding that buyers have no need to fear for their condition. “These rabbits have for some years been traded as well as anything that comes to our markets,” the journal says.

The chief drawback to the rabbit trade nowadays is the low price paid for skins. At one time the sale of the skins was a very profitable business, but lately it has dropped almost to. nothing. A few years ago a skin was worth 4d, but now is barely worth a penny and is difficult to sell.