COMPETITION FROM AUSTRALIA.

Hawke's Bay Herald-Tribune, Issue 35, 25 February 1937, Page 4

COMPETITION FROM AUSTRALIA.

As some little diversion from current discussion of our, own dairy-product prices on the British market it may be worth while turning to the latest information we have from Australia regarding her production of butter, mutton and lamb. Firat of all, it is to be noted that, owing to drought conditions in many important dairying areas during the last half of 1930, there was a heavy fall in the quantity of butter shipped away. When compared with the experts for the corresponding months of 1935 the reduction was considerably over 20 per eent. Thus it can scarcely be said that there has been any flooding of the London market from Australia to account for the recent very serious fall in London selling values, For that we have evidently to lpok in some other direction. At the same time it is just as well for us to note the marvellous extent to which the dairying industry has developed in the Commonwealth during recent years. Latest returns show that last year 165,000 dairymen were engaged in the industry and that the over-all production from Australian dairies was valued at something over £40-million. Oi course, a very considerable proportion of that output is for home consumption, but of the exportable surplus'of butter no less than 92 per cent. went to the United Kingdom. The dairying area, too, is still increasing, though upon that tendency the present good prices for wool and meat, as compared with those for milk products, will no doubt put some check. In Australia they would seem, without any recourse to State buying at set prices as adopted here, to have developed a fairdy satisfactory gystem for the regulation of prices that has regard for both the home and the oversea market. It is largely with the object of preserving this system that a referendum is to be taken over the whole Commonwealth next Saturday week, Another direction in which we have to look for keener competition from Australia is in the export trade in mutton and lamb, though this, too, may be checked by the high prices that have this season been realised from the finer wool of the merino sheep not suited for the meat trade. Even so, however, the movement towards the production of heavier, carcases has been quite marked, and it is only during the last week or two that we have heard of further big shipments of New Zealand stud sheep to South Australia with this very object specially in view. In any event, it seems pretty weljL assured that in the export lamb trade Australian competition is likely to grow, while it has to be noted that last year no less than 98 per cent. of the Australian mutton and lamb exports went to the United Kingdom. The latest figures available show that for each of the last two calendar years Australian exports of mutton and lamb to the Old Country had attained to just about half those from New Zealand and to something subs'tantially more than those from the Argentine. We may, of course, congratualte ourselves on the fact that not only have we already developed the right type of sheep for the meat trade Lnt are also greatly favoured by Nature in both soil and climate for producing the best quality. At the .semc time,. however, it does not do for us to flatter ourselves overmuch in this respect in the fa,ce of the evident efforts Australian sheepftsrmers are making to convert some at any rate of their vast floqks into meat-growers suitahle to the Britsih consunusr's taste.