PRAISE PROM CRITICS

Evening Post, Volume CVI, Issue 8, 10 July 1923, Page 8

PRAISE PROM CRITICS

TEE MARKET POSITION.

- .The'National^ 'Dairy Association, in a letter, to its clients, reports that at a recent meeting of produce merchants in Montreal, Mr. J. A. Ruddick, Dairy Commissioner for the Dominion of Canada, spoke of the extraordinary rigidity of the New. Zealand and Australian .grading ■ regulations, . butter or cheese once hems" graded, remaining in Government control.until loaded on the export vessel, whiie in Canada it remained with the dealers. He also pointed out the exact conditions a3 to temperature before loading on cold storage ships, in order to prevent deterioration, so that antipodean cheese must necessarily arTive in England properly matured, while \he Canadian cheese was sold green, and often reached the English-shop counter three weeks after.it was made. He was emphatic that more riaid grading and packing regulations were needed here if Canada w.as to. regain its place on the British diiirv market. I COMPETITION TO BE FEARED. ■'•■ He said ■ something must be done to meet antipodean competition. . In Australian and particularly New Zealand cheese" and butter, Canada was going to meet .'competition such' as had.not. been .dreamed of, and there would have to be much reorganisation of the dairying industry in Canada if this competition was to be met. The largest Canadian cheese factories would be small units in the antipodes.. .Instead of the.little Can-adian-affairs,'which produced'up to 400 tons a year, with a cheesemaker and practically, ran themselves,'he had found' an the antipodes cheese-factories'-'tnrri- I ing riiit. lOCO:tons a "year,..': arid butter I factories in New Zealand running 2500 long tons a year. Those'were co-opera-tive affairs, and employed expert man-agei-s._ Instead of tho happy-Ro-lnck'y Canadian system, with small •factories »nd no management, the New Zealanders had big factories and highly efficient managers, paid from 3000 dollars up to 5000 dollars a year, and they were not Mere makers, but business"' managers. In Canada, he said, the old system was obsolete,-although people did not seem to know, it, arid .imt.il modem ;methods, «uch as those of New Zealand were adopted, Canada conld not hope to refrain her former pre-eminence in dairy products. Large factories, modern methods and expert efficient management, with reliable grading, he said, were the crux of the situation. . UP AGAINST IT. '. Mr. James Gillanders, a leading London importer of Canadian and "world dairy products-followed-with some sharp criticism in a friendly way. Canada, ho' paid-was-np-against it so-far as-New Zealand was concerned, not only in production, hilt.quality, their butter being' 3>f a quality that Canada had never yreamed-pf.~-The British palate-was-a'j teen disc.erner of quality/ 'and the result of the wonderful, progress of New Zealand-had", been that Canadian cheesn Jrom leading, with a premium of 4s to 6s had_ dropped back to third place | ..with New Zealand commanding pre- j _ Early Canadian butter last season'had been so poor that it had damned later shipments, some of which were so good as to compare -favourably with New Zealand and Danish butter. v The same factors militated to reduce the position of Canadian cheese on the British market, especially poor srodin" and lack of level quality in shipments lie pointed out what Denmark, and now Aew Zealand had done, practically oustJn<; the Canadian products, and urged that his many old friends in the Canadian produce trade should put new life into the business. 'r.o that it mi^ht be worthy of so great a Dominion as Can-' a da,., because, the . British were . anxious to trade with Canada, but not to the ex-' tent.of buy.m s inferior butter:and cfteese ,it high prices.