BUTTER PRICES

Hokitika Guardian, 17 March 1927, Page 1

BUTTER PRICES

effect of new policy

Australian & N.Z. Cable Association.]

AUCKLAND, March 16.

New Zealand butter is now being quoted on the London market at 146 s to 148 s, and cheese at 76s to 78s, according to advice by cablegram received at 1 o’clock to-day by the Chairman of the New Zealand Dairy Pioduce Board, Mr W. Grounds, who is at present in Auckland. The advice added that the produce was moving slowly, and that it was evident that the buyers wore holding off the market.

Mr Grounds said the Board anticipated there would be a considerable fall in the prices before a sales basis was reached. The decline was serious, however, and in the case oi butter particularly. The prices named for butter by the Board before the change in its policy were 158 s and 160 s against 146 s and 148 s at the latest advice. This was a decline of 12s within about two days.

The decline lie said in the case of cheese was 6s to 3s per cwt.

“My personal view,” he added, “is that the country knows that it was disastrous to abandon price fixing.” Mr Grounds was asked how lie proposed to reconcile the clearance of large weekly quotas with fixed prices. Air Grounds said: “I will not discuss that point now. The Board has taken the view' that the safes must be made, and it has removed the price restrictions, and I must support the policy of the Board, and I intend to use my best endeavours to secure a maximum of success under the new policy.” “What are the prospects?” he was asked. f

‘Well, no man could venture a confident opinion at the moment. All that I can say is that the market appears stagnant at the moment. We shall have to await events for a workable basis.”

WORK OF VESTED INTERESTS. HAMILTON, March 16. Interviewed on the dairy position today, Mr Dynes Fulton, the OH airman of Directors of &o New Zealand Cooperative Dairying Co., said:—“Once again the vested interests opposed to the dairy control have resorted to hysterical denunciation of the Board, in an endeavour to stampede the producers of the country'.” They, however, undoubtedly had utterly failed, he said, as on all the previous occasions when such attempts had been made. Unfortunately, said Mr Dynes Fol-

ton, the vested interests had succeeded in scaring the Government, which, in this instance, held the balance of power on the Control Board. An examination. of the position showed how bankrupt of any foundation this latest outburst of th© vested interests was. 'JTio country had been treated to the spectacle of glaring posters and newspaper headlines. Yet, what was the peg on which all this sensation hung? It was merely oil the statement of a “Prominent marketing authority,” who. he it particularly noted, had advisedly remained anonymous. The statement was to the effect that the present butler oosition was a fiasco. The whole of this alleged trouble was laid at the door of the unfortunate Control Board. It must he obvious to all flic sane producers that the persont condition of affairs, in so far as that condition may he unsatisfactory, was solely due to the inefficiency of the non-control system under which our produce was held last vear.

“It is,” continued Mr Dynes Fulton. “unnecessary for me to traverse in detail the essential facts, so ably set. forth by .Mr Grounds in the two statements he has made, “hut 1 recommend every producer in the Dominion to read every word in these statements and thoroughly to digest them.” Mr Dynes Fulton emphasised that the Control Board had only been in ojieration, in so far as actual control was concerned, since September last, and at the inception of its operations it had found itself faced with a huge accumulation of the old season’s produce. This accumulation was a direct result of the non-control conditions. The Board had applied itself to overcoming one handicap, and he (Mr Fulton) felt sure that it was only the obvious prospect of its success that had prompted the present outburst of the vested interests, who were endeavouring to see that the principle of cooperative marketing did not get a chance to he tried out, they realising that its success would bo a severe blow to themselves.

If. added the speaker, the recent happenings had served no other purpose. they had at least shown the farmer just exactly where he stood.