The New Zealand Times. THURSDAY, NOVEMBER 18, 1926. ’WARE THE ARGENTINE AND SIBERIA!

New Zealand Times, Volume LIII, Issue 12607, 18 November 1926, Page 6

The New Zealand Times. THURSDAY, NOVEMBER 18, 1926. ’WARE THE ARGENTINE AND SIBERIA!

So far absolute control has not proved very controllable. This finelooking charger has leaped sideways into the ditch, and refuses to budge. The cabled “agreement” between the board and the trade as the result of the Prime Minister’s intervention strongly resembles the arrangement decided upon at the board’s meeting on October 29th last. If they are one and the same thing, the inference is that once more Mr Coates has backed down. One specially significant part of the cable message announcing the “agreement” may be commended to the attention of those who vilified the “Times” from end to end of New Zealand over the warning sent to the “Daily Mail.” Here is the statement:— The Dairy Board has not agreed to forgo altogether the policy of price-fixing .... It is time our then splenetic attackers began to write their apologies. Our words of months ago have been confirmed in every detail. In spite of its assurances, and the assurances of its political and Press friends, the board has resorted to price-fixing. In point of fact, it had no alternative the way it was going, as the “Times” predicted from the outset.. Again, we said that Tooley Street and the multiple shops would not submit to the dictation of any board. That, also, has proved true, as the state of the market (as we write) discloses. Here is further information for the absolutists exemplifying the power and methods of Tooley Street. It was Tooley Street which laid the foundations of the dairy industry in the Argentine and Siberia by spending two or three millions sterling and employing among other highly-paid experts one from Australia and one from New Zealand. The former was the chief dairy authority of the Commonwealth ; the latter was lured from the Dominion Agricultural Department. The Imperial Economic Committee, in its recently-issued report on the dairy industry, urged the necessity of the Dominion cheapening production costs and increasing output in order to meet the severe competition which is inevitable from the Argentine and Siberia. In one year, 1923-24 to 1924-25, the Russian butter exports to Britain jumped from just under 8000 tons to over 26,000 tons. It is the reported ultimate aim of Tooley Street to ensure a supply of 50,000 tons of butter from the Argentine for the market from October to April, and a like quantity from Siberia tor the MnySeptember period. Meanwhile our controlled butter sells slowly when at all. We are anxious to see what effect, if any, the revised form of pricefixing will have on the stagnant market.