A TROUBLED INDUSTRY..

Waikato Times, Volume 108, Issue 18166, 3 November 1930, Page 7

A TROUBLED INDUSTRY..

PROSPECTS FOR DAIRYING. ) BY NO MEANS REASSURING. WEED FOR ADDITIONAL MARKETS. (Special to Times.) WELLINGTON, Saturday. The dairy farmers of the Dominion for some time past have been gravely perturbed by the outlook for their products during the current season. Apparently they have reason for their concern. Mr William Goodfellow, the managing director of .Amalgamated , Dairies, who returned from a business trip to Australia the other day, did not ; mince matters when discussing with other experts the prospects of the markets. The outlook for butter and cheese, he said, was by no means assuring, and he would not be at all surprised if the price of butter in London fell to a still lower level. Jt was estimated in Australia that the export surplus, of butter from the . Commonwealtli during the would amount approximately to 50,000 tons, an enormous increase upon pre- i vious supplies from the sister States. v Neither Australia nor New Zealand, ( Mr Goodfellow went on to say, had yet acquired the art of distribution, 92 per cent. of'their butter and cheese going to London, while no more than - 8 per cent, of their produce was consigned to the provinces. It seems from ; these figures that large fields of possi- , bilities still remain unexplored by the , producers at this end of the world. Producers’ Difficulties. Addressing the members of the Do- ; : jmnion Executive of the New Zealand Farmers’ Union, at the very time Mr i William Goodfellow was emphasising the gravity of the difficulties besetting ' the dairy industry, Mr W. T. Poison, M.P., the president of the Union, urged the producers to “wait and see” the results of various expedients that were - being tried with a view to improving < the position. /‘Mr W. A. lorns, the ; chairman of the Dairy Control Board,’ he said, “has taken a very strong ■ stand in regard' to standardised I cheese, which was established quite 'recently and has not yet had a very long trial. It is a very important i question indeed, and it is very im- , portant that no hasty step should be taken by the Dairy Department, which, af.er all, has the last word in regard to this matter. Tt is a bad time to swap horses in the middle of the | stream. A great deal more caution should be exercised tha.n the Dairy i Board has yet displayed.” Mr T. G. Brash, secretary of the . Dairy Board, following Mr Poison, ■ after admitting that all was not well with the Dominion’s cheese, confessed | that the butter position also was ; difficult. Canada last year had taken 1 ' 800,000 boxes of New Zealand butter; this year it was taking practically none. ’ j Tightening Up. J A business man, who lays no claim : to a knowledge of the technique of butter arid cheese making, says the complaint of the exporters is that the i ■products of the New Zealand dairy industry are not maintaining to-day the ] relative prices with the products of ; other countries they did a few years ago.' He does not wish to discuss the '• merits or demerits of standardisation, j and he does not challenge the asser- , tion of the cheese factory represents- , tives who met in Hamilton a litle ; while ago to declare that in their opinion “a degree of improvement in the quality of make of cheese in New Zealand (full cream, and standardised) can be brought about by the tightening up of the existing regulations, and protests against the proposal to abolish the present regulations, which permit of standardisa- . tion.” My authority cannot quite understand how so admirable a practice requires “the tightening up of the existing regulations,” but'perhaps this lies at the bottom of the whole conten- , tion. There may be standardisation j and. standardisation, and one measure | may not agree with another. Anyway, j it is obvious that the whole position - needs the closest examination by , capable and independent authorities. ■ Uncertain Outlook. Meanwhile jt will not be unproflt- [ able to bear closely in mind Mr Good- ■ fellow’s observations concerning the ■ future, as he saw it after his visit to Australia. . Speaking generally as to 1 the prospects for the approaching sea- j son, this very observant authority said the outlook was extremely uncertain, and no one could confidently forecast j the measure of the output or the prospects of the market. If the depres- • gion continued in Australia, and New J Zealand itself suffered, producers | would have to accept very low prices, r “I would not be surprised,” he added, 1 “to see the butter market fall to a 1 considerably lower figure, 'so far as ■ London is concerned, than it is at present.” All this emphasises again the need ■ for other markets than London for New Zealand dairy produce. If the Dominion continues to pour its butler and cheese into the Great Metropolis, 1 without regard to higher quality and 1 other available markets, it certainly will have little prospect of regaining - the position it once occupied in this great industry.