THE DAIRY INDUSTRY

Hokitika Guardian, 24 August 1927, Page 1

THE DAIRY INDUSTRY

FOSTER ING FRESH MARKETS

According to Mr F. H. Leonard, principal of the firm of Leonard and Son, Ltd., produce merchants, who recently returned from an extended visit to England, Canada and America, opportunities for broadening the marketing basis of New Zealand butter and chose are being lost. Air Leonard was in the United States and Canada just after the New Zealand Dairy Board had announced the abandonment of price control, and with tho prospect of free marketing soon to follow. lie found the merchants were ready to talk business. This applied to New York. Chicago. Montreal. Winnipeg and Vancouver. As indicating the magnitude of the operations of American produce dealers .Air Leonard mentioned that a firm ne got in touch with in Chicago, has thirty private telegraph lines giving exclusive connection to tho thirty

chief centres of the country. In Afo-ntronl. Air Leonard found flint marketing is absolutely unrestricted anil factories sell their surplus output each week to the highest IJddo v . who does what lie likes v.iih ;r. In the case of cheese, he vax-.s it. places i■ in coo! .storage and tin-:) watches the market. In Winnipeg. Mr Leonard found signs of opposition to New Zealand

trade from farming interests sf the AVestern Provinces but at a complimentary dinner tendered hy hanking and commercial reproscntarivi s, he produced figures to show that it would pay the Canadian fanner best to sc' l his product iu the flush of the sea-un to London, leaving the d.mas; io winter market to New Zealand. In A'nneoiuver, Air Leonard fund that there is a deiiime demand a!! the year round for New Zealand hut re;-, and he was told that the opposition to its import: would probably (ease if the business were coniincd to straightout- sales. Consignment business was objected to as it had -a disturbing effect on the market. As a matter ( f fact, added Air Leonard, the week that he was in Vancouver a, consignment of New Zealand butter arrived with the result that the market dropped 3 cents per lb. immediately. The Americans, lie said, were ureal speculators and were willing to buy New Zealand butter to-day for deliver-, next December on the basis of Is Id per 1f... or equal to 170 s per owi . London. Even though a higher price might he obtainable later on, lie could not escape- the conclusion that a sate of a- portion of a factory’s output, on this basis would lie good business, as

apart from any merits in the transaction itself, it would lessen the extent of any congestion that might- become apparent on the London market early in the New Year.