ARE WE FOREIGNERS?

Waikato Independent, Volume XXXIV, Issue 3236, 22 November 1934, Page 2

ARE WE FOREIGNERS?

SOME ENGLISH THINK SO. why butter is hard to sell. ■‘Get out my shop. I don’t want damned foreigners or foreign butter in it.” “I am sorry old man, but I never sell foreign goods of any description. I only sell Empire butter from Denmark.” “My customers won’t have New Zealand butter. They prefer Australian • “Where is New Zealand? Is it ish?’’Yes, these comments were made in England—Nottingham, to be exact — to a New Zealander, who is engaged in the difficult task of selling. New Zealand butter to British shopkeepers. The remarks were made by the storekeepers, and the first man stocked nothing but Danish butter. “We prefer Danish to New Zealand. It is far superior.” “We only sell the best butter,” to which the question was: “What do you call the best?” “Danish. We don’t sell margarine or cheap New Zealand.” “I.only sell Danish and Lithuanian, and when my customers ask for Empire butter, I sell them and they don’t know. It costs me less than Empire butter and I get the. same price for it.” A burning question in the Dominion to-day is: “Why does our butter not command a better price?” These comments, made to a New Zealand salesman in Nottingham, provide one of the reasons. Danish Butter Higher. Nottingham, incidentally, in amanufacturing i city with a population of 260,000. It is a stronghold for Danish butter, although a large quantity of New Zealand butter is sold by the' large company shops. The salesman did not call on those people, but on the smaller shopkeepers. At that time Danish was selling for 1/- per lb., and New Zealand from lOd to lid. “Most of these small shopkeepers,” a letter from the New Zealander states, “know nothing whatever about butter. They are a very ignorant lot. 'However, occasionally I do strike a man who can and will discuss butter and give his opinion, backed up Byreasons . * ■ “A point which has struck me very forcibly, and, indeed, most New Zealanders whom I meet, is that we do not advertise New Zealand sufficiently* “Unfortunately, a large proportion of English people think we are part of Australia, and this, at present, is not at all complimentary to New Zealand in the eyes of the?, English public, owing to the ill-feeling over the cricket controversy. “Here is an example which will give a better idea of what I mean by New Zealand being considered part of Australia. The moment you mention New Zealand to a person, he says: ‘Oh, yes, I had a friend who went out to Australia,’ or ‘How does the climate in Australia compare with England?’ or, ‘What are conditions like in Australia now ? ’ “The same thing applies in business . You ask a trader to stock New Zealand butter and he promptly replies: ‘I am selling Australian, which is the same thing’.”