BUTTER MARKET POSITION

Taranaki Daily News, 29 March 1933, Page 12

BUTTER MARKET POSITION

PRICES RECEDE TO BOW LEVEL. DISCUSSION OF RESTRICTION. The. present position of the butter market is being viewed with grave concern by all connected with the dairying industry and the export trade, stated a Wellington paper yesterday. It is being realised generally that a crisis is rapidly approaching, if it has hot already arrived. The British market is being flooded with butter, and prices have again receded to a low level. A cabled report received at New ' Plymouth yesterday afternoon stated that butter was quoted at 70s and cheese at 41s for white and 49s for coloured. Private cable messages urging that the question of restricting exports should be faced have been received at Wellington. The New Zealand Dairy Produce Export Board at present stands definitely. opposed to any restriction of butter exports from the Dominion. According to private advices received at Wellington last week, the Australian Dairy Board will do nothing in the matter of restriction until it has conferred with representatives of the New Zealand Board.

The representatives of the New Zealand Board, Mr. Dynes Fulton (acting chairman), Mr. W. Grounds, and Mr. T. C. Brash (secretary) will leave for Australia on Friday, April 14, and will return to Auckland on April 26. The next meeting of the New Zealand Dairy Board will be held at Wellington on April 28. Discussing a cable received by a Wellington firm from a leading Tooley Street house a representative of the firm at Wellington admitted that restriction of exports would be a very serious step to take, but he thought it would be justified by the position that was developing in the London market. He admitted further that in the event :of restriction the quantity of butter held, off the market would present a problem. Nevertheless it would be a “good gamble” that the abnormally good seasons experienced in Australia during the last two or three years would not continue, and that there might be a dry season in Europe this summer, in which, case the held-over butter in New Zealand would be quickly absorbed. Joseph Nathan and Co. Ltd., New Plymouth, yesterday received the following cable, dated March 28, from Trengrouse and Nathan Ltd., London: Butter 71s; cheese, white 41s, coloured 48s; both markets weak, and no buyers.