FREE BUTTER MARKET

Pukekohe & Waiuku Times, Volume 9, Issue 564, 7 September 1920, Page 2

FREE BUTTER MARKET

"GREAT PRINCIPLE *AT STAKE."

MR. GOODFELLOW'S VIEWS,

In commenting on the question of a free market for New Zealand dairyproduce, Mr. W. Goodfellow, general manager of the New Zealand Co-op-erative Dairy Company, said that the Imperial Government had agreed to pay the required price and to recognise American and Canadian sales as requested, but the provision contained in the cablegram regarding a free market was very unsatisfactory. The recent communication from Great Britain, said Mr. Goodfellow, indicated that the Consumers' Council, a powerful Labour organisation, was endeavouring to induce the Imperial Government to permanently establish a system of control whereby the producers of the Dominions would be paid a I"" 1 "' lUii 1 '" for their produce than for that produced in Great Britain and Ireland. The butter producers of New Zealand realised that a great principle was at stake, and unless the Imperial authorities would promise to pay the same price for produce- imported from the Dominrons as for that purchased from the farmers of Great Britain and Ireland no sale would be made. It was quite evident, added Mr. Goodfellow, that if this system of control was allowed to continue it would become an established practice, and in all probability would be applied, not only to butter, but also to cheese, Theat, and all other food supplies imported by Great Brtain from the overseas Dominions. Unless the required assurance regarding a free market in future was forthcoming there would, declared Mr. Goodfellow emphatically, be no sale, and the, dairy companies of New Zealand would consign their surplus produce to Great Britain only after making extensive sales elsewhere. From an economic standpoint it was of vital importance to the future prosperity of this country that the producers should sell as well as buy on a world parity basis.