BLENDED BUTTER

Wairarapa Daily Times, 18 September 1934, Page 4

BLENDED BUTTER

FOREIGN DUMPING;.. * ' . ' f 3 t (London Correspondent.-)" M LONDON, 10th August. How the sales of both Home and Empire producers are affected by the continued dumping of subsidised foreign butter on the British market has again been pointed out in the Press —this time by no less a person than a representative of the British Dairy Farmers’ Asr soeiation, Mr J. G. Stapleton. He says that for the first half of this year, Britain’s imports of European butter were up by 423,000 cwt., or 23 per cent—the increase being largely due to subsidised production and to the action of Continental countries, such as Germany, in closing their markets to the Baltic States, who were thus forced to dispose of their surplus by sending it jMi.o Britain. Until foreign countries warned to desist from such uneconomic marketing practices, there should, Mr Stapleton says, be no talk of Empire quotas. Sir William Wayland, M.P., has confuted a denial from a Danish correspondent in the new agricultural journal, “The Farmers’ Weekly,” that Denmark subsidises her exports of butter. Sir William explains in detail how Danish “price stabilisation” operates, and urges that all subsidies, direct or indirect, should bo abolished before anv_ future trade agreements between Britain and foreign countries are concluded. Only by this means, he says, can the interests of British producers be safeguarded. The Press has devoted much attention I to a movement, sponsored by the Conservative Parliamentary Agricultural Committee and the Empire Industries’ Association, for stricter regulation of the marking of blended butters. The only requirement under the present making order is that blended butter containing foreign butter should bear the inscription, “containing imported butter, ’ ’ no name of origin being requisite. This means that although “straight” foreign be marked ‘ ‘ foreign, ’ ’ and Empre butters marked “Empire,” a blend of the two, even when it is overwhelmingly foreign, need only be marked “including imported,” so that the English housewife is frequently and easily deceived about what she is buying. Sir Basil Peto, a West Country M.P., the other day drew the attention of the Minister of Agriculture to the fact that last year £7,205 metric tons of Russian butter were imported into this country, and that it was never retailed as such, being blended with other butters and sold under various names which gave no indication of the country of origin. M4p Elliot replied that it was present to introduce legislation making obligatory the full description of the origin of component parts of blended butter.