The Taihape Daily Times. AND WAIMARINO ADVOCATE WEDNESDAY, AUGUST 28, 1918. PRODUCE PRICES AFTER THE WAR.

Taihape Daily Times, 28 August 1918, Page 4

The Taihape Daily Times. AND WAIMARINO ADVOCATE

WEDNESDAY, AUGUST 28, 1918. PRODUCE PRICES AFTER THE WAR.

(With which is Incorporated The Taihape Post and Walararlao News)..

By stating in yesterday’s Issue tiia. j the fitful dried milk craze, now at its height in this country, was being reflected in the higher price of milch cows it was not our intention to convey the idea that a temporary matter of this kind would, or could, have anything but a negligible effect on stock and meat prices generally. It must be realised that meat producing countries produce for the world, and if this country had to be limited by its own market requirements, it is doubtful whether its people would not have to look for other avenues of national progress. Meat values are not affected by the rise and fall of supply and demand in any one country of the world, but they are governed by the supplies reaching the chief distributing markets of the world, hence we find that although meat is produced in our paddocks we have to pay the same price for it, less exportation charges, as is paid in London, or elsewhere, Thp war is responsible for meat price increases to a very considerable extent, but it does not go all the way. The depletion and increase of flocks and herds are factors that force themselves upon our notice, and it is the extraordinary demand at the present time, and its concomitant depletion of stock of all kinds, that furnishes the hope for satisfactory prices being obtained for our meat for some time after the war closes. The demand for military consumption will certainly decrease rapidly, but the cessation of rati6ning will tone down and prevent anything in the nature of a slump. We have urged the wisdom of, arranging with the Imperial Government to continue the requisition of meat. to at least a year after the war to avoid stepping into a disorganised market of black uncertainty. After all previous wars there followed a ruinous slump in all food commodity values, and although there are no evidences of anything of the kind coming after the present war, we cannot altogether disregard the possibilities. Moreover, the additional year’s requisition will assure satisfactory prices for opr meat during the time of greatest disorganisation and, perhaps, market chaos, for it will be readily recognised that markets during the transition stage from war to peace, may be made disastrously stormy if all checks are removed which to some extent do control the operations of trusts and other exploiters. The extended requisition, then, will see the pfoducers well over the first year after peace is declared, but what is going to happen thereafter? It is assumed that shipping difficulties will no longer be extreme, but, whatever may be said to the contrary the formation and operation of shipping rings are going to disturb normal equanimity if they are given an entirely free hand. There is also the middle-man scourge; the men who come from England and sit in an office in Wellington and make more real profit out of marketed stock than* the producers do. The best interests of farmers and of the whole country demand the scraping off of these barnacles when the day of free markets arrives. Important as these matters are there are others equally, or more important; it is well known that tremendous areas in various countries are being prepared for stock-farming as a result of high prices during the war; this does not furnish an immediate factor in meat prices, but the fluctuation of the animal statistics of the world is a much more sensitive price barometer. While in New Zealand our flocks have shown what, under the circumstances, may be considered reasonable increase, there are larger, and consuming, countries *n

which the reverse has been experienced. It is not possible at present to learn the approximate decrease of sheep, beef and dairy cattle in belligerent enemy countries; we are aware that flocks and herds in Germany, Austria, Bulgaria and Turkey have dropped to a disastrous’level; we are also aware that Belgium, France, Italy, Rumania and Russia are suffering from depleted stock farms, and even the Unites States, which ha’s always been an exporting country, has, during the past few years, had to import meat somewhat extensively. The ■xmisfortun.es of all these countries operate towards furnishing feelings of security in New Zealand, but, in Britain, where a very considerable decrease of flocks and herds might reasonably have been expected, there is an actual increase. Britain importec about fifty per cent, of its consumption before the war, but with more general and more extensive cultivation, not more than thirty per cent, may be required after the war; the United States will, however, be an importer to an extent that will more than compensate for any decline in Britain, and then there are Allied, neutral, and even enemy peoples that must supplied with meat till some degree of recovery in production in those countries is attained. It would seem from the situation after war that meat prices should be firm at present rulings, but the British market will be the price arbiter, and the two chief ,■ factors—eliminating trusts —will bo Britain’s domestic meat supply, ana the purchasing power of people in Allied, neutral and enemy countries. The only menace to satisfactory marketing | conditions are meat trusts and shipping rings, in the continued operations of which the masses in Britain are proclaiming that they are going to have a consider\ble voice. It must be evident that an appreciation of money must reflect on meat prices through the diminished purchasing power of the people. Nevertheless, view the subject from whatever piano one will, highly remunerative prices for our exports are visible for several years into the future after war.