AS OTHERS SEE US.

Thames Star, Volume LXIII, Issue 17680, 3 September 1929, Page 5

AS OTHERS SEE US.

INCREASED BUYING POWER. IN DOMINION OF NEW ZEALAND. RESULT OF TWO GOOD SEASONS — w , . i Under date 27th. July, the London Times refers to the improved outlook in New Zealand now, it opines, so clearly evident, and . suggests that British manufacturers and exporters having close connection with the Dominion should feel the benefit of an increased purchasing power attributed to two bounteous seasons in succession. It is set out that not only have the valuable exportable products increased in volume, but they have realised remunerative prices in all the oversea markets to which they have been shipped, and the price of the portion retained for home consumption is based, upon the value for export. The close of the month of June is the best period at which to take an economic glance at the Dominion, as by then production for export has closed, and July is utilised as the month for preparation for the" coming season. This opens in late August with the first shipments of butter, followed by cheese, with wool going forward in November, and early lambs the following month. This year farmers have done repiarkably well. Although rather less by 2d. per lb. average has been received 4 for woolj more wool has been shorn. There were sold during the last auction season—November to March—s3B,493 bales, compared with 514,133 bales for the season before, the gross return to growers for wool sold in N.Z. being £11,604,523 against £12,467,725 for the 1927-28 season. This wool was sold in the country and paid for within 14 days of the fall of the hammer. The price per bale, however, was £2l/10/11L aganist £-24/5/- per. hale. Returns for fat lambs at the opening of the season—December—were above London' parity consequent on local competition for the stock; hut the prices have receded. Nevertheless, pastoralists have for the past two years received excellent returns from their husbandry, and are now in general on easy terms with their bankers and the firms which finance them.

Dairy Produce. /■ Dairy farmers have also done remarkably well, and are expecting the British market for 1920-30 to be as good as the period which closed on June 30 this year. The output from dairy factories —butter and cheese — calculated on a butterfat basis is 11.36 per bent. higher (to May 31) than that of last season. Prices to producers will give a return as good as, or rather better than, that of last year. Increased production is due to expensive ,tqp-dressing and better farming, with a . closer supervision over dairy herds.

Increasing quantities iof beef now find their way to the United States of America, which now takes more beef from New Zealand than does the United Kingdom. The outlet in that cquntry for New Zealand mutton and lamb is not growing. All the byproducts of the meat and dairy industry have yielded payable returns, such as skins and hides and tallow, whey butter, casein, five-day-old and pork from the dairy farms. Although increasing quantities of butter and meat are being marketed in Canada and the United States, there is a movement to open up the Far East to trade, the Government having under .consideration the subsidising of a direct steamship service, but whether this will be confined to Hong Kong, China' and Japan, or include India and Malaya and Netherlands Indies is yet to be made clear. An American line of cargo steamers in the transpacific trade is now provided, with a limited capacity for the carriage of insulated cargo between the United States and New Zealand. Unemployment is not quite so acute as it was a few months ago, and the wholesale and retail trades are showing an inclination to Increase stocks, which had been permitted to run down. s

The outlook for the expansion of purchasing power in New Zealand during 1929-30 is bright and encouraging. There are no signs of industrial disturbance, and so far as the farming sections of the community are concerned they are in a situation of financial. ease as a result of the two good seasons and Increased production from the land.