THE EXPORT OF BITTER.

Otago Witness, Issue 2813, 12 February 1908, Page 6

THE EXPORT OF BITTER.

We trust that the result of the shipment of butter which went Home by the Tongariro and was placed on the market this week will not prove to b<» a mere flash in the pan. In any event, however, no more satisfactory news lias been received in Xew Zealand for a long time by tho=e engaged in the daily produce export trade than that published by us j'esterday. Not only has this particular shipment realised p price in excess of the highest that had previously been obtained at Home for our butter, but success has crowned the efforts of the colonial producer to place on the English market an 3 article which, despite all the handicap incidental to the long voyage in refrigerating chambers between New Zealand and Great Britain, has commanded a higher price than that paid for the be^fc Danish. The Tongariro shipment, we should judge, met an especially favourable market. During the whole of last season Danish butter never yielded more than 126s per cwt, and the average price for it throughout the whole year was 115s 6|d. This week, however, it has realised 1275, or more than the highest price paid for it last year. The average of the value of New Zealand butter on the Home market last year was 107s 5cT, and the highest price obtained for it was 118s, which figure it touched at the close of September. The price —130s per cwt — that was yielded by the Tongariro ment represents, therefore, a remarkable increase upon the quotations for last year. The average for the twelve months was, as a matter of fact, greater than the price realised by any New Zealand butter that was placed on the London market between the months of January and July of last year: it :s in the last half of the year that the quotations are most favourable to shippers. While this* circumstance must be regarded as distinctly encouraging to those factory companies that were* not tempted, as so many of them were, at the end of last season to substitute cheese-making plants for their butter plants, it is to be recognised that if the shipments of our butter to England should continue to realise prices exceeding those yielded by the Danish article, the colonial consumer may have to be prepared in the ensuing winter to pay more than he does at present for the butter which is retained for disposal in New Zealand. The question of price i<s one that may, however, be expected to bfe speedily adjusted through the operation of economic laws. High quotations in England will necessarily lead to manufacturing developments in New Zealand and to such an increase in the output as will ensure an abundant supply at prices representing a parity with English values. In the meantime it is a matter for distinct congratulation that New Zealand butter has received so distinctive a hall-mark as is involved in its having realised a price" substantially in excess 1 of that offered for the Danish commodity, and it will be a great achievement f&r the factories in this Dominion if they can succeed in retaining the position of preeminence which they have now temporarily captured.