The Christchurch Star PUBLISHED BY New Zealand Newspapers Ltd. FRIDAY, APRIL 6, 1934. BUTTER PROPOSITIONS.

Star (Christchurch), Volume LXVI, Issue 20273, 6 April 1934, Page 6

The Christchurch Star PUBLISHED BY New Zealand Newspapers Ltd. FRIDAY, APRIL 6, 1934. BUTTER PROPOSITIONS.

■JV/f R GOODFELLOW’S ten points "*■ or propositions for the Government’s consideration in regard to the butter industry necessarily include recommendations that are altogether commendable. To bring exchange hack to par with sterling, to encourage dairy farmers to breed pigs, ewes and poultry, to maintain the quality of dairy produce, to actively push sales in all new markets, and to establish patting plants in the United Kingdom, as a preliminary to the pushing of pat butter throughout Britain, are all commendable. To replace the exchange premium with a temporary subsidy, however, might not be so easy. The Government resorted to the cunning alchemy of high exchange—by which the cost of living is subtly increased—merely because it did not dare to inflame public opinion with subsidies amounting to anything like the figure for which the primary producers were clamouring. It is therefore on the horns of a dilemma. High exchange, in defiance of the spirit of the Ottawa Agreement, imposed a heavy allround tariff on every importation from the Old Country and, as Mr Goodfellow says, the British manufacturer is now worse off than he was before Ottawa. It should be remembered, however, that even if separate trade agreements are to be made on the expiry of the Ottawa Agreement, New Zealand, whose tariffs after all are chiefly revenue tariffs, will still cut a good figure in comparison with the other Dominions, and the threat of reprisals by Britain is more imaginary than real. In the meantime, as Mr Forbes has said, the British market is open to New Zealand exporters, and it is for them to do their best with it. Along that line the patting and pushing of butter and the improvement of the quality are all of vital importance. OVER-PRODUCTION. /"AN ONE OTHER POINT Mr Goodfellow must expect to be challenged. He states that there is in reality no over-production of dairy produce, but under-consump-tion, especially in Europe. It v is significant, however, that in the London “ Times ” of February 27, Mr C. S. Orwin, of the University of Oxford Agricultural Economics Research Institute, discusses the subsidising of the production of milk in unlimited quantities from this very angle. Maintaining that “ the difficulty caused by over-production is to be met by an encouragement to produce still more,” he points out that the prospect of excessive production under the marketing scheme has already given rise to the request of the Hops Marketing Board for powers to limit acreage, and has led the potato marketing scheme to a compromise between unlimited production and direct restriction. On the ground that both of these expedients are open to the grave objection that they create monopolies, he advocates the principle of the Wheat Subsidy Act, by which the quantity of the commodity for which the full subsidy may be paid is fixed, and when this maximum has been reached any further increase reduces the effective subsidy proportionately. HUSH-HUSH CRICKETERS. 'T'HE WORSHIP OF CRICKET has come to a strange pass when so much fuss can be made over the captaincy as is made over Jardine’s ungraceful retirement. But looking beneath the surface it' appears that the M.C.C. is wisely dropping the man who developed bodyline bowling, because it is constrained by a gentlemen’s agreement not to persist in that discredited tactic if it desires to retain a reputation for good sportsmanship. The exaggerated importance attached to the captaincy of the team is, indeed, only an attempt to revive a controversy that it is in the best interests of cricket to ignore, and the hush-hush policy of the Australian cricketers is a tactful endeavour to help the M.C.C. out.