OUTLOOK FOR FUTURE.

Putaruru Press, Volume VIII, Issue 325, 13 February 1930, Page 5

OUTLOOK FOR FUTURE.

BUTTER AND CHEESE. Review by Mr. T. C. Brash. A review of the growth of the New Zealand dairy industry and a forecast of future developments, was given by Mr. T. C. Brash, secretary of the Dairy Produce Control Board, at the meeting of Morrinsville factory suppliers last evening. Mr. Brash said the question of shipping was of great importance. New Zealand had the biggest handicap of any dairy exporting country in being 13,000 miles from the European market. Yet she was sending more dairy produce into Britain than any other country in the world. She was supplying 22 per cent of the butter and 55 per cent of the cheese imported into Britain. Shipping played a very great part in their success or failure.

Forty years ago the value of New Zealand’s exports of dairy produce was £200,000, while now it was £20,000,000. In the old days practically the whole of the produce wa3 bought at the port and the producers had to sell to the merchant who had bought up space on the boats. At every conference dairy farmers used to ask why they should not book their own space. Then the South Island Dairy Association and the National Dairy Association got to work, but they had no power to bind the factories. The Board had power to bind dairy companies to provide the freight and they could then approach the shipping companies and offer to give them all the freight of New Zealand dairy produce if they would cut the rates.

The Board made out all the bills of lading for all the produce sent out of New Zealand. This caused a great amount of work. They tried to give Auckland and Wellington shipments at the same date so there would be no heart-burning. Every steamer did not call at all the ports. It took four steamers to call at all the 11 grading ports. For every shipment out they had to provide a complete schedule of all the brands and condition of butter shipped.

The growth of the dairy industry was such that they wondered where they were going to land. They were still finding a market for their dairy produce, and there was no danger of over-production. There would always be a demand for their produce. He was not afraid for the future of the industry. Butter production was certainly increasing all over the world, especially in Baltic countries and Siberia,, Danish butter production had increased by 29 per cent during the period that New Zealand production had increased 400 per cent. Danish butter had been shut out of Germany by the recent German tariff.

The outlook for cheese was more hopeful. Canada in 1913 was exporting 80,000 tons to Britain, but now was sending only 39,000 tons. New Zealand had increased its export by about the same rate as Canada’s had declined. There was just the same amount of cheese going into Britain as in 1913. He would not like to see the production of cheese going down. He thought the future of cheese was better than for butter, and he thought that cheese would regain the ratio that it bore in 1913, when there was a boom in cheese factories, especially in Taranaki. Production of butter in the Argentine was actually declining.

Australia would require all its own butter to feed the people of its cities. Canada had ceased exporting butter and was now importing butter from us. In spite of the agitation now going on Canada could not shut out New Zealand butter because New Zealand imported more goods from Canada than Canada got from New Zealand. The New Zealand Government would protest if a prohibitive tariff was placed on butter in Canada. New Zealand was producing a good foodstuff for which there would always be a de-

mand, and they were alive to the necessity of quality.