IMPERIAL LARDER

Press, Volume LXIII, Issue 18896, 11 January 1927, Page 3

IMPERIAL LARDER

HANDLING OF DAIRY PRODUCE. "FIXED" PRICES IN SLUGGISH MARKET, FHu.'i OLT. OWK COBRKSPOXDEXT.) LONDON, November CO. The following paragraphs appear" in the current issue ■of "The Imperial i'ood Journal'':— ''The new scheme for the handling of New Zealand dairy produce, whereby minimum selling prices are fixed by the Now Zealand Dairy Produce Board, become operative »s from the fifth' of the present month. As ft reference to our market reports will show, the inception of "absolute control" has seen a fulling market, and those responsible for fixing prices had last week to concede 2s per cwt in regard to finest white, and Is in the case of finest coloured New Zealand cheese. It will bo interesting to see how "fixed" prices fare in a sluggish market.. "No doubt Tooley Street will be taunted upon having, as alleged, engineered a fall in butter and cheese, but nothing could be'further from the truth. The fall is due to economic factors over which no one has any immediate control. It cannot, however, be denied that tho great wave of hostile sentiment hurnt into tho heart of the trade here by tho ultimatum of the memorandum in force as from September Ist has set the fide against New Zealand butter in Great Britain, and retailer and wholesaler alike in their revulsion of feeling against control tyranny, have unitedly determined to "give the turn to the other sort" whenever possible. As we have previously said, goodwill in business is a sine qua non, and we trust that the New Zealand dairy farmer, for his own sake, will be quick to renlise this. Market at Bedrock.

The present low ebb of. prices in tho butter market is not, however, of Tooley Street's own seeking, and thoso responsible for having heaped up New Zealand butter stocks have only themselves to blame for tho results which they have recently reaped. To one more fact we would liko our Now Zealand farmer readers to pay attention. The butter market must now be at about bedrock. Assuming that it may 6teadily, if slowly, rise from now onwards, and that also from now controlled butter will be ready to come on the market, let not tho farmer be misled by any likely cry from the New Zealand Dairy Board that prices are improving because of Control. To gain the full truth tho farmer will need-to see how other butters appreciate in prico, and make the comparison with a similar comparative improvement in another season. We think, knowing human nature for what it is, that New Zealand butter this time will lag somewhat. ■\Vnat a, wicked world, the farmer will eay. Wo would reply, "No, just human." The »ow Zealand Control Board has essayed to take the zest out of business in a territory not its own, a territory entrenched by the widest flow of products known by any maij ket in the world.' - Outside tyranny' can hardl.v hopo to succeed in sucli a market. Tho New Zealand farmer must also remember that once tho principle, of fixed minimum prices is abandoned, there will no longer be tho necessity for a great expenditure on board officials, which ho should by now have realised will prove an immense tax on his yearly income." Waiting and Watching. "Fiigorificuß," in the samo publication writes; "Another suggestion has been made, that the New Zealand Meat Producers' Board should take Sontrol of the meat in the: Dominion and arrange;-for cool stores in England, but before such a scheme is Bet r on foot it. would bo well to see'how tho .New Zealand Dairy Produce Control Board's policy of absolute control which will be in operation' this month turns- out. Mr K. S. Forsyth, tho ■ London manager of tho New Zealnd Meat Producers' Board, who recently went out to tho Dominion, took with him plans and particulars of cost of a site for a 'cold Btorage establishment in London. This looks a3 if tho Meat Board has got a. good; way in tho.'consideration of getting up storage of its own on tho Thames. .As the previous paragraph shows, however, it is waiting and watching the fortunes of "absolute control", in New. Zealand butter : and. cheese.' That spectaclo should not, be 100 exhilarating, I fancy, but one never, knows what the New Zealand interpretaUibn of tho upshot. may- -be. Distribution; of N.Z. Butter. Following an address given by her at a meeting of the Wolverhampton Grocers' Association, Miss C. Hole, organiser of the Empire Goods Campaign (women's. branch) was asked to embody, in her. report to headquarters a complaint from Wolverhampton to the. effect that'thfiro was a strong objection to the distribution of New Zealand. butter through certain agencies in London. By holding up supplies in cold storage these agencies brought about artificial conditions in tho market, which hindered the proper working ■ of. tho trade. Producers' Pools.

Alderman T. Kirk '(Weat'.Hain) writes in tho "Railway Review": "Tho greatest fools in the Socialist movement are those who talk twaddlo about food trusts. We have only, had one food trust in this country, and that was the late lamented Food Ministry, the like of which we never want to see again, especially in its post-war aspects. And don't forget that when in 1919 and 1920 the bureaucrats -of that Ministry inducod Mr George Roberts to take the fatal step of recontrolling bacon, and purchasing the bulk supplies through, tho State, it was the co-operative movement .which, sent its bacon managers to the Standing Committeo on Trusts and bitterly denounced tho scandalously high prices and wretched rubbish that the public were paying,2s and 2s Cd a pound for. It is because I know tho whole history of the Pood Ministry business that I am dead against the purchase of wheat and meat by the State under our present capitalist' arrangements. "Only in this week's 'Co-Operative. News' 'we get a concrete idea of how ridiculous it is to assert that producers' : pools formed in < exporting countries can control priceß In theFree Trade market of Great Britain. Take Australian butter. Mr A. V. Alexander, M.P., shows that the prico fixed by the Butter Board of the Queensland Labour Government to the consumers invßrisbane is 191s per cwt. In this week's, price list of George Bowles, Nicholls, and Company, the wellknown provision merchants of West Smithfield, we read, 'finest Australian first-grade Queensland butter 148s per cwt.' Even that really beautiful butter, the best Victorian 'Kangaroo,' is only quoted at 1725.. Last year Mr Alexander shows that, Queensland had to sell 2.08,000 tons, of sugar in British and other outside'markets at JSll'lOs a ton which it cost about £26 a ton to produce. Effect of Long Storage. "All that goes to show how little producers' pools can rule markets like ours. Yet only the other week Mr E. F. Wise was telling tho I.L.P. ho* pools and boards were controlling the. output of New Zealand dairy produce. Why did he not tell them of the shocking mess that the New Zealand Board have mado of their butter business! Thousands of tons of the most beautiful butter in tho world havo been held up in cold store until it has lost its flavour, and is now being sold at less than some kinds of Siberian. Meanwhile the same stupid Board .is fixing a price for the new butter of which the London Provision Exchange reports: 'Practically no business doing.' Facts v. Theories. "The same tale could be told of the sheep and lambs at Smithfield Market. All this'' summer thero have been two grades on the market—this season's new, and last season's old discoloured stocks sold at a penny a pound less, and twelve months' storage charges on it. And then there are foolish people who get up on Socialist platforms and talk about the wonderful discoveries of our Colonial friends in the direction of, 'orderly marketing.' Good heavens! If this is orderly marketing, what would you call disorderly! Unless the reports which I am receiving from Buenos Aires regarding the coming Argentine wheat harvest are misleading, I shall be strangely deceived unless in about three months' timo some of the corn-pooling gentry of Canada, who have had a good game at our expense since 1924, will be discovering i that, though theories "are very simple, facts | are very stubborn." . ; . I