BUTTER PRICES

Wanganui Chronicle, Volume 80, Issue 123, 27 May 1938, Page 11

BUTTER PRICES

REASONS FOR RISE SMALLER LONDON SUPPLIES LONDON, May 7. Indications o£ lower supplies from almost all sources are considered by Tooley Street merchants to account for the high rates that have been ruling for New Zealand butter recently. Reports of decreased gradings as compared with last year in both Australia and New Zealand have been supplemented by reduced supplies from the Continent. No butter has been shipped from Russia, Siberia, or the Ukraine so far this season, and no news is available of future consignments from these sources. It is thought that as Russia now has a gold reserve and no longer finds it essential to make heavy butter shipments, she is likely to utilise the available supplies in providing for increased internal requirements. Therehas been a bad season in the Argen-I tine, with consequently reduced con I signments, and less butter is being | sent to England this year from South and South-west Africa. One merchant! saidi he considered this was partly due to tn; overshipments made last yea . which necessitated the importation n 1 New Zealand butter toward the close i of the season for internal requirements, causing an outcry at the high; prices prevailing. He thought a more 1 cautious policy was being followed this 1 year. To add to these influences, butter] has been slow in coming forwi.i: from Ireland and from the regularContinental suppliers, probably to' some extent on account of the extremely dry spring. A further big advance to the rates; that were ruling in the late autumn ; is considered unlikely, but the view was expressed to-day that It would not be surprising to see a return to the days when colonial butters regularly brought more than produce from the Continent. Higher whole-; sale prices resulted in an increase in the price of retail butter by Id to Is 1 4d per lb this week. It is as yet loo 1 early to judge the effect on consump-i tion, but it will probably mean some , decline.