THE PRICE OF BUTTER.

Rangitikei Advocate and Manawatu Argus, Volume XXXIV, Issue 9347, 16 January 1909, Page 2

THE PRICE OF BUTTER.

A FALSE POSITION.

' i-ress Association. Wellington, January IS. M««ers J. J. Louedale and <<o , or Lmduu, Hie weU-bno«u hrii, ' .f butter merchants, in a business letter written to Messrs A. S. Paterson and 00. of this J l ®* fgect some statements regarding the effect noon the prices of batter, which has resulted from the Australian practice of consigning whole shipments of butter for sale «IK» ownmission, in preference to selling them in advance to butter buyers. The practice has been followed to some extent in New Zealand, and the letter is intended to convince dairymen and others that their . interests would be served best by straight out sales The firm states that never in its experience has it known the butter market to be in such an absolutely false position as it was at the time of writing (some sis weeks ago), and by way of explanation the letter attributes the position to the fact that so-called purely commission firms had no interest in the trade other than to sell consignments as qmckly as possible. ’ ’ The result was __ that the market was never considered by these receivers. It was a case of helter-skelter to sell at any price, and the owners “paid the piper. The firm’s letter, in conclusion, states that “this method of consigning must at all times be a great disadvantage to the butter marke > generally, gand we must certainly cake it into consideration in future operations by making sure chat people on this side have a sufficient interest in the market to make at least some attempt to stem a collapse, otherwise purchase at all times will be very unsafe.” It is Messrs Lonsdale and Oo.’s opinion that instead of Australian butter having been at 104 s per owt (some six weeks ago), there was no reason whatever save the swamping of the market by “purely commission” sellers why 114 s should not have been obtained.