The waikato times With which is inďrporaled The WAlkato Argus. MONDAY, AUGUST 1, 1932, BUTTER,

Waikato Times, Volume 112, Issue 18703, 1 August 1932, Page 6

The waikato times With which is inďrporaled The WAlkato Argus. MONDAY, AUGUST 1, 1932, BUTTER,

Some alarm may be created in the breasts of dairy farmers by reports of the Fafmet‘B’ Conference now sitting at Hawkesbury College, Australia. There is however, no teal room for perturbation. Australia, has, it is true, greatly increased her production of butter duting the past year or two, but there are special reasons for this, and it is not likely to be permanent. In accordance with its policy of protection, a special price is made for all butter oonsumed locally, and the fund thus created provides a bonus of 2d per lb on all butter exported. Mr Bruce will probably mention at Ottawa that tie Is taxing his people In order to give the people of Britain butter at a tower price than Australians pay. Then again Australia has been fortunate in the seasons, which have provided the rainfall so necessary for grass.

The o'hief reason why Australia will never be a serious competitor in the dairying industry is that her climate is more suitable for either wheat or wool. Her dairying is done in a very limited area. Dairying is an industry most successfully carried on in countries with an extensive coast line. This prevents any excessive variation of temperature between summer and winter and lessens the necessity of providing feed for one season or the other. It will be noted that all countries that have ever been noted for dairying have usually been small countries, and have always had a large coast line.

It is on the continents that wheat is grown, and although Argentine is a large country with an unusual proportion of good land, and a suitable climate it has never developed a dairying trade. It is of course possible that the long continued depression in the price of wheat will cause some •of the growers to look elsewhere, but they will turn first to raising meat, for which the size of tho farm as well as the climate of the Country is more suitable. We cannot say until trade becomes norm-all whether there has been actual over production in wheat, but it is a striking fact that semiluxuries such as lamb and butler have not suffered in price so much ns wool and wheat.

In comparison with industry farming is regarded as a calling in which those engaged are slow to adopt improvements, but this is very far from true. The improvements in ‘machinery and in methods have probably been greater in farming than in any other direction. 'They have, indeed, been so great as lo prove the undoing of those that carried them out, for they have certainly contributed io the drop in prices, even if liic chief causes are to be found elsewhere. It 4s of course, possible that if trade wero normal over-production would be found te exist in very few lines, but this can only be decided by trial.

Such questions open Up wide issues. The steady fall in the birth •ate of most European countries is jound to lead to great changes. It is a phenomenon that has not appeared in Asia, where men increase in numbers as fast as ever they did. In India and Japan it must be a serious problem at a very early date. For iOO years Europe lias controlled the world. It is scarcely likely to do so for the next 400 years. As against the falling off in the birth rate must be set our socialistic legislation. Death duties and a graduated income tax are steadily reducing the numbers of the rich, while improved methods make a whole variety of commodities available to those of moderate means. A man of £IO,OOO a year may drink more champagne and wear more diamonds than a man of £SOO a year, but he will not eat more butter dr lamb. He will use very little more wool. As his £lO,000 a year comes to be spread over twenty men of £SOO a year there will be fewer racehorses, oil paintings or Rolls Royce factors, but there will be more professional exponents of cricket, tennis and football, more motors of lower price and above all a greater consumption of what we now regard as luxuries or " semiluxuries, but which our children will look on as necessities.

Prophecy Is notoriously untrustworthy and these thing's depend on movements among the races of mankind which wo foresee. Perhaps a-, far as we can go is to say that the problems and troubles that now loom largest to us are not those t/hat will occupy our minds in the near future.