THE SUGAR OUTLOOK.

Taihape Daily Times, Volume XI, Issue 3543, 3 August 1920, Page 6

THE SUGAR OUTLOOK.

ANYTHING Bb'TTPIiOMISING. LONG VIST A OF LALIGNING. The sugar outlook is far from heartening (says The Dunedin Star). The shipment which reached Dunedin per the Menowai on the loth represented only about two-thirds of what we have been getting latterly; and even that was a long way below the quantity normally distributed and sold. The next shipment will come by the Navy a, and as she will be a week behind the date on which she was originally expected. sugar \fiil be very scarce in Dunedin a’l next week. Grocers are eking out their bare .supplies \with parsimony (21b a customer being the general allowance), and even at the price of (Ud fixed by the Board, it is claimed that there is nothing in the line at current wholesale prices, and with extra weighing up and service necessitated by the limited allowance. In the days of plenty before the war sugar was one of the linos frequently ‘‘cut' 1 by grocery competition, and on occasions was sold almost at cost price. ■

About 2id per lb was somewhere near normal; (Ud is .now claimed to be absolute bedrock. Now, in the face of things, does it appear an over high charge, for while in 1914 (he wholesale price was £lfi 15/ a ton, to-day it is £47 10/ 3 f° n f-O.b. at Auckland—; rouahlv £59 a ton here. Moreover,' quite recently the South African Government, approaching Mauritius sellers with an offer cf £OO a ton, were met by a demand for £IOO.

New Zealand "s prospects for this year > ft'er no hope of recovery. The Government have purchased from Fiji 65,000 tons to cove'- th? ensuing twelve months: but New Zealand's consumption is about 120.000 tons annually, and when the jam season comes along it looks pp i'f there w n 'i be enough sugar for preserving. A pretty Ion? foreground r.f rationing meets the eve in fact; and the only

1 comforting reflection is that as most su°'ar-growing countries are increasing their sugar-bearing areas, demand must eventually be overtaken by supply, with consequent and considerable collapse of prices. Some optimists envisage this reversion in about two years' time.