The Akaroa Mail. TUESDAY, FEBRUARY 15.

Akaroa Mail and Banks Peninsula Advertiser, Volume V, Issue 476, 15 February 1881, Page 2

The Akaroa Mail. TUESDAY, FEBRUARY 15.

The advice to dairy-farmers given in our editorial last week has bad some effect. Elsewhere appears a notification convening a meeting of dairy-farmers and others interested, to take steps towards giving practical effect to the suggestions therein thrown out. We hope lo sco a good attendance and that all will evince a determination to put their shoulders to the wheel and have the experiment f.iiriy and conclusively tried.

We observe a disposition in our correspondents (: Yeritas " and " Exportation" to infer that the interests of producers and dealers in this matter are dissimilar. Nothing can b. , more shortsighted and thoroughly mistaken than this view. Anything which will have the effect of permanently raising the price of a staple article of production must have, a beneficial effort on all concerned, storekeeper as well as farmer. For, in the first place, if the former be a buyer, he will pet more profit on the transaction the larger the amount represented by it, and secondly the purchasing powers of his customers will be increased in the ratio of the increased price. In the course of the discussion and conversation on the subject which have come to our knowledge during the last ft'w days, one or two fallacies have cropped up and appear to be devoutly believed in. No progress can be made towards the solution of a difficulty as long as the ground is cumbered with false premises. Let us see whether we cannot help to disabuse the minds of those most interested of some of these mistaken notions which they have adopted on insufficient evidence.

One ot these impressions, which we have ventured to call fallacies, exists among some of the farmers, and is to the effect that the present low price of cheese is due to some action taken by the local buyers—combination is tlio favorite word used. Now, this is certainly a false impression. If such a thing ever were possible (which we very much doubt) it certainly is impossible now. The local buyers have no morn control over the price than they have

o-vor the rise or fall of the tides. Each phenomenon is regulated by laws, not difficult to be understood by those who nre willing to look a little below the surface. In this question of price, it is the inexorable rule of supply and demand that regulates the rate, and no " combination," however cleverly worked, could permanently interfere with its operation, On the other hand " Veritas " seems to wish to imply that the low price is due to the bad quality of the article produced, and no doubt many will be found to agree with him. But neither will this position hold water. For, in the first place, we think it would be very hard to show that the >vholo of the cheese produced now is of worse quality than it was years ago, and even if it were so, the present state of the market would not be accounted for. For in that case good cheese would become so scarce that it would fetch a higher price than ever, and the Peninsula cheese, the moment it got out of range of tlio " contra accounts" alluded to by our correspondent, would be entirely unsaleable. Now, every business man knows that in quoted prices for any article, it is understood that the sample must be at any rate of fair quality. So that the prices ruling in Dunedin and elsewhere arc for good cheese, not " conglomeration of curd."

In every sense, then, the opening of a fresh market would be a benefit. The more critical and discriminating the market was, the better would it be for those who would adapt themselves to circumstances. r< - '.-*-■"■■

One great complaint made now, and not altogether without reason, is that good and bad snmples both fetch tho same price. This would be entirely ob viated if we succeeded in opening up an export trade. Each lot would then stand upon its merits, and every improvement in manufacture would be rewarded by an increase in price. As to that quality which would not stand the voyage, it would simply cease to be made, and, on the principle of the " survival of the fittest," it would drop into the position of an historical curiosity. Our contemporary, the Lyttelton Times, has a few remarks on the opening up an export trade in the kindred article ot butter, which are so absolutely appropriate to the question that we cannot forbear quoting a portion of them. The Times says :—

" The horizon lighted up by the Protos shipment is expanding , . Last week the profit reported was £1000, as on the whole shipment of meat. Since then the Company in Melbourne have received advices by cable informing them that the profit on the meat and butter together amounts to between £2000 and £3000. The importance of this news can hardly be overrated. It means simply that the value of fresh butter to the Colony is increased by 25 per cent, or 3d per lb, and that there is no limit whatever to the quantity that may be produced. The fact can be realised when we mention that an authority computed the butter consumption of London alone as equal to 101b per head of the population, or in all forty million pounds, exclusive of six millions required for the supply of the shipping.

Further, it must be borne in mind that in the winter in England, when the local article is scarce and prices high, the Colonies are producing butter in the greatest quantities. We quite agree with our contemporary the Wairarapa Standard that the butter trade must not be undervalued in the consideration of the interest of the preserved provision trade which is about to spring up, especially in the splendid grazing districts of Canterbury."

We leave the question now with the greatest confidence in the hands of those most immediately interested.