DAIRY MARKETS

Southland Times, Issue 21091, 24 May 1930, Page 7

DAIRY MARKETS

CONTROL BY AMALGAMATIONS. A FORESHADOWED. BY LONDON DIREC- ' TOR. (Special to the Times.) New Plymouth, May 23. The control of the Home dairy markets by one or two large amalgamations in the near future is foreseen by Mr G. D. McFarlane, London director of the New Zealand Producers’ Marketing Association, who gave an address at Hawera to-day. Multiple interests were growing rapidly, and competitive buying was diminishing. ■The trend to-day was that the Home Government might eventually have to become purchasers of the peoples’ requirements, for that was the position the amalgamations were forcing by their extensions of control, said Mr Mcßarlane. Even if. New Zealand had control boards, marketing associations or other bodies to control sales of dairy and other produce, the large amalgamations would continue to make or mar the markets. Their position would be so strong that they could purchase from other countries if necessary to the exclusion of New Zealand. If the Home Government purchased, it would then be open for the New Zealand Control Board to arrange with an economic or consumers’ council for the purchase of New Zealand produce, including dairy produce, wheat, wool and meat. • That view was being discussed with seriousness and fulness by the Government, importers and others alive to the position, and the trend of Government interference might be opposed in that direction, but the resultant stabilization would mean an advantage of a period of say 5 or 6 years of fixed prices which Mr McFarlane believed would be beneficial fof both producers and consumers. Monetary reform would prevent fluctuation in prices and bring about a better level of prices to the general betterment of the industry and the buying, public. In 1914, the standard of currency was gold and the amount in circulation.then was £180,000,000. During the war it reached’ £450,000,000. The Cunliffe Committee set up by the Government to consider the question reported that the currency should be brought back to £230,000,000 to retrieve the gold standard. In 1922, banking interests put into operation the committee’s recommendations by calling in credits, that having the effect of causing a slump. While it had not been possible to get. back to the currency level at that time, another attempt was now being made and to this was largely due the present slump. The speaker dealt with overproduction in every commodity. In most of them there were millions of people who could consume them, and while we had- this overproduction, the power standing in the way of the consumption of the products was the monetary interest. The amount of currency available was not sufficient to allow consumers to buy products, said Mr McFarlane. Unemployment among the miners naturally affected the consumption of cheese. Another factor was the increased use of petrol crude oil engines which consequently meant that coal outputs were seriously affected and an increase of unemployment’resulted.