BRITISH BUTTER MARKET

Rotorua Morning Post, Volume 2, Issue 235, 26 May 1932, Page 4

BRITISH BUTTER MARKET

A hint of the difficulties likely to confront New Zealand's delegates to the forthcoming Empire Economie Conference at Ottawa, is eoiit^ined in a question asked in the British House of Commons on behalf of-the dairy farmers of Devonshire It had been necessary, the questioner told the Minister of Agriculture, to with-hoid from the London market, part of the butter produced in- Devon because of the competition oi heavy supplies from this Dominion, and he wanted to know whether anything could be done about it at Ottawa. Looked at from the British point of view, this is a very serious matter.' However much Britain may desire to help the Dominions and to encourage Empire trade, she cannot afford to penalise her own people, least of all her farmers, in doing so. The fact that from Devonshire comes the very finesf butter produced in the British Isles, while it may be an unintentional compliment to the New Zealapd article to admit the seriousness of its competition, will only increase •]1®1fravity coiriplaint in the Englishman's eyes, because ii Fresh Devon" cannot compete, the other Iiome butters stand a very small chance in the scramble. The New! j Zealand Dairy Export Board's statistics for the first four months of this year show an increasq of butter experts to Great Britain of over 5Q00 tons compared with the same period last year and of over 10,000 tons compared with 1980. While these figures, of course, do not imply proportionate increases, or even actual increases of these amounts, for the full season, they do indicate a certain amount of congestion of stocks on the London market, especially as it is known that British butter iniports from all sources this year to date have also increased considerably. The inferred congestion i_s also suppprted by the recent diillness of the market and f all fn prices. At first sight the present situation may seem to support the contention, frequently advanced, that overproduction is a cause of some part of the Dominion's troubles. . This might be so if it could be shown that not only the London rriarket, but the whole of the English and Scottish markets had been systematically and intensively cultivated and that there were^ definitely no further possibilities of increasing consumption in Great Britain Such a claim would be patently Yicidulous and even tfm adherents of the overproduction school of thought do not make it. As a matter of fact in many important respects, the time was never more favourable than now for an intensive campaign for new markets. Great Britain's own "Buy British" and Buy Empire" campaigns have ereated a favourable atmospherq and all through the English midlands and the centres of population in Scotland, which are the Danish strongholds, there are opportunities waiting to be seized by Empire producers. Meantime, though a start has been made — the marketing of New Zealand dairy produce being perhaps the best organised of any — the problem of winning Denmark's customers has not been tackled on a large enough scale. One result is that progress has been dishearteningly slow and another is that in the south of England, where New Zealand's chief market lies, there has been congestion, to the detriment of both the Dominion and the Home producers. These conditions are fully understood by . the.leaders of the Dominion's dairy industry, who reasile that preference in any real measure will help them immensely in their efforts to capture trade from the, Danes and will also assist in the development of a better balanced distribution of their product in Great Britain. This is one of the main reasons why they so strongly desire the inclusion in the New Zealand delegation to Ottawa of an expert representative of the indu^ " and it is to he hoped that when the Government announces personnel of the delegation the name of such a representative will be included in the list.