CHEESE AND GUNS—INSTEAD OF BUTTER

Bay of Plenty Beacon, Volume 4, Issue 307, 19 May 1941, Page 4

CHEESE AND GUNS—INSTEAD OF BUTTER

Sir, —The spectacle of the Minister of Marketing and Agriculture exhorting leaders of dairy farmers to produce more cheese and still more cheesei reminds us that we have completed the cycle which began during the 1914-18 war, when cheese and guns were more important than butter. Our portly enemy, Goering is credited with urging his German slaves to produce guns and go withoift butter—and he got plenty of guns and the Germans, are getting no butter. Now it seeras that New Zealand's enthusiasm over the last 20 years to produce more but-" ter every year has been dampened by the fact that Britain needs gunS with which to silence Goering's guns, and cheese on which to feed the men who man, the guns. In the prosperous years that led up to the 1939 Avar the cheese industry was the "Cinderella" of New Zealand farming. We were producing twice as many tons of butter as cheese, and the butter-making factories were gradually nibbling into the supply of thr cheese-making, factories. Even on the Rangitaiki Plains the small cheese factory at Otakiri went out of existence. In the first few years of Mr Nash's Guaranteed Pricc Scheme the cheese industry cried aloud that Mr Nash's prices did not give clreese suppliers the necessary 2d per lb margin over butter to compensate for lack of skim milk for pig-raising and the higher costs in cheese factories. It took several years to make Mr Nash see the point. Now the Empire wants shipload, 5 Df cheese, and those fanners,, whQ are anchored to butter-making factories are beginning to feel that they are "out in the cold" as far as doing all they can to win the war. This illustrates the effect of the rivalry between dairy companies m past years, whi«h resulted in the butter-making companies reaching out for supply of cream in all directions in order to increase output and lower manufacturing costs. In such a race for supply tho factories never had a chance. They were left at the post, Where they have held their ground it has been duo to the loyalty of suppliers to the factory in which they had fully-paid-up shares. Had the "butter octopus" had its way in the last 20 years there would be no cheese industry now. Fortunately for New Zealand the zoning system kept the tentacles of the "butter octopus" from getting too close to the cheese factories. More recently, under stress of war conditions, the Government forces the "butter octopus" to "loan" some of its suppliers back to the cheese factories. Now the process is to be carried still further, if the goal set by the Minister is to be reached. It does rather seem as if the idol of mass production and lower costs which the "butter octopus" has worshipped since 1918 has been a false god after all. "Now the golden cheese seems to be what the golden calf was to the Israelites. So cheese has etaged a comeback.. It calls to mind the song about Tommy Atkins popular in Boer.^ar It's "Tommy this" and "Tommy that" And "Chuck him out, the brute !" But its "Saviour of your country !'* When the guns begin to shoot. And so we have completed the cycle since the 1914-18 war. In those days little cheese factories sprang up at every cross road in dairying districts. A good thing it was too, for it encouraged closer settlement and dairying. With the post-war slump and reconstruction began the era of big butter factories and collecting lorries wearing, out the roads and putting up the county rates. Now it looks as if we should see more cheese factories. The cheese industry has been vital to New Zealand's welfare. New Zealand supplies the bulk of the cheese that Britain consumes, whereas, before 1939 our New Zealand butter was (Continued in next column).

struggling for place on. the-Brit-ish market with butter from. Denmark, Australia and elsewhere. Yet at dairy conferences the cheese pro-, ducers have always been out-voted and out-talked by the butter producers. Now the Minister of Agri- . culture is doing most of the talking, , and he is talking a lot about cheese. Excuse this rambling letter, Mr Editor, but it;does make one wonder. t Yours etc., CHEESE MITE.