The Sun 42 WYNDHAM STREET, AUCKLAND THURSDAY, MARCH 7, 1929 “THE MAD RACE FOR YIELD”

Sun (Auckland), Volume II, Issue 606, 7 March 1929, Page 8

The Sun 42 WYNDHAM STREET, AUCKLAND THURSDAY, MARCH 7, 1929 “THE MAD RACE FOR YIELD ”

THOUGH it is barely six years since the seasonal butter output of the Auckland Province reached a million boxes, the twomillion mark is in sight this season. Ordinarily this would give cause for unqualified satisfaction, but the prospective attainment of the fresh level in fine productive achievement happens to have come at a time when serious misgivings concerning the quality of our produce are agitating those associated with the great and vital industry.

Abstract questions of texture in cheese and butter, colour, lustre and aroma, and ail the rest of the esoteric technicalities, are subjects that give the man in the street little concern. He is content to leave them to the people in the business, to the shippers and the buyers, the distributors and the graders, and last, but most important of all, to the factory managers—those remarkable slaves to duty who, blending the industry of a farrier with the studious interest of a scientist, bring to their daily task an enthusiasm that the average citizen usually reserves for bis sport.

As a medium between rural enterprise and the diverse interests of city business the factory manager holds an important place in the scheme of New Zealand commerce. He shapes and defines the activities of the dairy farmer, and delivers into the warehouses of the city a marketable commodity. The stimulus of his enthusiasm has been behind the soaring curve that represents New Zealand’s increased production. And now, in a situation that appears to offer only cause for self-congratulation, competent observers drop the warnings that quality is declining in “the mad race for yield.”

Whatever might be thought of Sir Thomas Clement’s views, serious attention must be paid those of Mr. F. J. Nathan, a practical and experienced observer whose power of critical analysis lias been enlarged by a recent visit to England. Passing over grading figures, both here and in England, Mr. Nathan in an address yesterday got down to the incontestable basis of relative prices. Here he showed that Canadian cheese and Danish butter are both getting better prices than the New Zealand product. Since the first-class New Zealand produce gets less than the first-class produce of these two competitors, there is inevitably an implied reflection on New Zealand gradingmethods, and Mr. Nathan made the common-sense suggestion that the grading staff should get into closer touch with the overseas markets.

Any newspaper reader can confirm the statements as to prices. A random comparison shows that New Zealand prices in London on March 1 were: Salted butter, 1725; white cheese, 85s; while Danish butter of corresponding grade was 178 s, and Canadian cheese up to 112 s. The reply of the graders to these figures touches an incurable weakness in New Zealand’s position—her distance from the markets. Denmark’s advantage in her ability to flood England with fresh supplies daily is plain, and even Canada has several thousand miles’ start on New Zealand. The loss of a margin in freshness, and of a percentage through deterioration in storage and transit, appears inevitable. In her striving for greater production New Zealand has increased her national wealth. To discard her ideals of quantity production in the interests of a narrow quality margin subject to the inexorable influences of time and distance might be to surrender the substance for the shadow. On the other hand, increased quality production in Canada may edge New Zealand out of the market at Home. Is the pursuit of quantity alone compatible with the economic safety of the New Zealand dairyingindustry? That is a question distributors, factory managers and producers have all to ask themselves. Meanwhile, the local consumer will ruminate ruefully on Mr. Nathan’s statement that the New Zealand public is sold “one of the worst cheeses in the world.”