DRIFT TO MARGARINE

Wanganui Chronicle, Volume 84, Issue 180, 2 August 1940, Page 6

DRIFT TO MARGARINE

POSITION IN BRITAIN NEW ZEALAND BUTTER MAY NOT BE REQUIRED [ Per Press Association. | WELLINGTON, Aug. 1. "People are just drifting away from butter to margarine,” said Mr. W. A. Simpson, who recently returned to New Zealand from a 17 months’ visit to the United Kingdom, in an address to-day to the United Kingdom Manufacturers’ and New Zealand Representatives' Association. Mr. Simpson remarked on the effect the increasing consumption of margarine would have on New Zealand’s butter exports. Margarine had the vitamins and first grade sold at 8d a pound and second grade 5d a pound. There was no restriction on its purchase and it was guaranteed made fresh every day and in consumers’ hands within a week of manufacture. The butter ration was four ounces a person a week.

"New Zealand butter has gone off the market as such,” said Mr. Simpson. “It is sold as 'Empire butter. Four ounces of butter a week is no use to anybody, so can you blame the people going to margarine? What is to happen to the money the people of this country have spent pushing their butter if it all has to be done over again after the war?” Mr. Simpson suggested that the economic position of Great Britain might prevent her taking butter from New Zealand, and he asked what the effect on New Zealand's Budget would be. Mr. Simpson remarked that the agricultural effort of the British Government was of great importance to New Zealand as a primary-producing country. At the outbreak of the war the Government had set out to bring into production as much as possible of the land not previously productive. By the end of March 2,000,000 additional acres were available, farmers having received a subsidy based on the acreage ploughed. The aim was to bring into production another 3,000,000 acres next season. Many parks and reserves had been split up into allotments, for which workers balloted