"Butter Only Worry"

Press, Volume CVI, Issue 31086, 15 June 1966, Page 13

"Butter Only Worry"

ty Z. Press Association) AUCKLAND, June 14. New Zealand had little reason to be worried about the long-term prospects for her exports of meat and wool, Professor C. P. Kindleberger, an American economist, said in Auckland. But prospects for butter were not so hopeful, he said.

Professor Kindleberger, who is professor of economics at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, is an authority on international economics and has written a textbook used throughout the world. He said butter faced severe competition from such things as margarine. Wool also had to face the challenge of synthetics, but it was responding well because of its inherent advantages. “Meat is a tremendous commodity,” he said. “Europeans are learning to eat meat, and Europe cannot produce all the meat it wants.

There is a great and growing market there, and in other parts of the world, as living

’ standards rise.” > Restrictions on the import ; of New Zealand products into the United States would not last for ewer, he said. “Free 1 trade must become the rule, ' and restriction the exception throughout the world. In the ■ long term, freer trade is in- ! evitable as the world becomes ■ smaller.” This did not mean that i barriers would break down - overnight But the whole in- ; tellectual climate was toward free trade, although it might . take a generation or more.