LONDON PRODUCE TRADE.

Taranaki Daily News, Volume LII, Issue 127, 26 June 1909, Page 6

LONDON PRODUCE TRADE.

"TOOLEY-STREET NO BIBLE CLASS." NOTABLE PAPER BY MR. MACKIE. It had Ibeen arranged that Mr. C. Mackie, recently Home agent for the National Dairy Association, should read a paper entitled ''lmpressions of the London Produce Trade" at the conference at Palnierston Xorth. Owing, however, to an unexpected and somewhat unpleasant development, this interesting paper was not read, but the Dominion published it. Mr. Mackie said that during his two years' residence in London he had witnessed some excitement—the slow rise and the rapid fall of prices money made faster than he could count it, and lost with a like rapidity. He thought that the people in the produce trade in London were all the better for his residence among them. The business houses' hi the great metropolis were the embodiment of the days that hall .been—solid plodding days. It was the natunl habit of the London business man to carefully scrutinise every proposal that was placed before him. He was the creature of habit, and had to be handled with all care. Naturally the establishment of the association's office in Loudon caused some talk in certain quarters. Enoneous ideas which had been formed had, however, now been dispelled. Tooley-strcet was the home of the produce merchant, both great and small. They were just average London business men —no better; no worse. The term "Tooley-strcet gang" was only a figure of speech, and was probable a back-handed compliment to their shrewdness, 6harpness, and industry. Tooley-street was no Bible class: The salesmen representing different houses followed their occupation in the street. DIVIDED OUTPUT AXD BUTTER

MOISTURE. The custom of dividing the output between two houses was not a good one, for the .buyers got to know who was handling the brand, and they played oft each firm's offer against the other in the hope of Breaking the price. The only way to counteract that was' to have a mutual understanding between the sellers, and that could only he obtained through the medium of the dairy companies!' representative in London. It was a difficult and a delicate position, but ho had proved that it could be done. There was now a unanimity and harmony amongst certain firms which did not exist before, and the more the dairy farmers • support the association the stronger would that feeling become. In the dairy produce trade the changes during the past two years had been fairly equal. Last season the buttersellers gave the buyers all they wanted .... and more, when they got them on a bare market. This season as he left the buyer was having hfe innings and trying all he knew to get some of his own back ... and he was Succeeding fairly well. United work in the interest of New Zealand by the firms handling its produce could only be obtained if backed up by the association. Those who made the assertion in the newspapers to the effect that the association would bo boycotted never made a greater mistake. Those young gentlemen who came over from England to buy New Zealand ' butter and cheese spoke sometimes without the book, and allowed their tongues to run away with themselves. The association was quite able .to take carp' of itself, and their anxiety that it should not lay itself open to being turned donvn by Toolcystreet or Smithfield was quite unnecessary.

> This season had seen the quality of ' New Zealand butter depreciate, and the fault seemed to lie in the new effort to increase the water content. Grumblers ■ about quality might be expected on a • falling market, but this season they 1 had every justification for grumbling. He had seen New Zealand butter analy- , sis, which showed 18.50 per cent, mois- ! lure. Not one case, but several, had • come under his personal notice. lie ' might be telling talcs out of school, but he knew the New Zeala-nd Govern- ■ ment paid a sum of money to a certain firm to have a factory's shipment of ■ butter (which had been sold to a customer) brought back to have the extra moisture squeezed out of it, rather than face «. prosecution. The position and repatation of New Zealand butter are serious: they hang in the balance. Should any grocer be caught and prosecuted selling New Zealand butter over the limit, the loss in money to the fanners of New Zealand would astonish them. What the retail grocers of Great Britain dreaded most was to have their names appear in the papers as 1 having been prosecuted for selling foodstuffs adulterated. One firm, in a letter to | lum, referred to a shipment ex Tainui. It was found to be all running mated-' ally over 16 per cent. The firm (continuing) said that it had to go very carefully to work in its methods of distribution, to avoid complication with the law, and perhaps conliseation of the goods. Such disclosures were doing the industry a considerable amount of harm Mr. llackic went on to say that New Zealand butter carried well with 12 to 14 per cent, moisture, but if companies availed themselves of the limit that the law allows, and increased the moisture to 14 or 16 per cent., they must be propared to go to the expense of pasteurisation. If the cost did not exceed Is Gd per cwt, then it would pay them to do it; if over that sum, then it would not. With 1(1 per cent, to 18 per cent., there was a chance of fishiness developing in the butter, and great risk of criminal prosecution, and if repeated offences imprisonment. DON'T LIVE IN A FOOL'S PAHADISK. He did not for a moment believe that the factories which exported butter containing moisture over the limit allowed by law did so deliberately. But the fact that New Zealand ibutter was found to contain 18.50 per cent, showed that a butter-maker could not control the moisture he incorporated within 2 1 /. per cent. Menders of butter uad no "very great objection to New Zealand butter containing 12 to 14 per cent., provided the special class of butter would stand it. New Zealand butter had other valuable properties which were suitable to the trade of the blender other than dryness. New Zealand butter was too valuable and expensive for the poorer c.asses, and if the companies which eater tor them reduce the quality of the butter by increasing the moistu.'o content they must be prepared to see that butter sold to the public at Is per lb. If the grocers' profit was' to be 2d |>er lb, and it cost Id to export it and recoup the importer, the return would be i)d per lb. Was there any sane man who thought he could increase the water content of New Zealand butter to Ibe limit and receive from the buyers (lis prices they bad paid hi JU in the ,»■• it! Ihey should not Jive in a fool's paradise, for the .blenders were not going to buy New Zealand butter under past conditions.

{UGH MUCKS AJfD THE PUBLIC, l'ebruary, 1908, would always be noted for the rapid advance in price of olemial butters. The first intimation I'o trade had in London of a shortness ii supply came in a cable from the '■Wary of the associatio-.i. Usually he Agricultural Department kept then, p to date with prospects of crops, scions, etc. Financial .people did not like o hear of droughts; 'bad crops, etc., and .ovcrmncnt official, vm „ ot j 3c | inC(l o circulate information that would afeet thou- loan prospects. It was cnirely in New Zealand's own interest »nt the trade should receive early in- 1 onnation of short supplies, but, on the tner hand, if New Zealand was goin" o have a good season, it should keep it n itself. V hen it dawiied on the Britili buyers that they were in for hij.li riee.s. a regular scramble ensued for iippta. It was a "panicky" team, and. 6 a result, such high prices were paid n the spur of the moment that when he reaction came they went to the ther extreme. That year saw Xew ZcaMid the same price as Danish, an alnost unheard-of; thing. The retailers iid a bad time—they were paying Is 3d ■ icr lb for butter and selling at Is M. Vas it small wonder that there was' a dump? The retailers were forced f o ■aisc their prices to Is 4d and Is (Id. ml- these prices were beyond (he limit nf the packets of the earning public. When the retail price was raised, the retailers found their sales fall on" 50 per , cent, I Had the speculators' been content to I leave well alone, good business would | have been done in the neighborhood of 130 9 . Toolcy-street, and. in fact, the provinces, were like "sheep without

shepherd," in fact, a "mob without a loader." They hall no organisation that could adequately cope with.either a rise or a fall. The result was that speculation .ran riot, and there were the two extremes in a comparatively speaking short Space of time. Immediately the prke reached 150s, the margarine and 'butter substitute manufacturers took advantage of their opportunity. ltc could name a large number of the biggest retailers who provided in various ways what they termed an insurance against "panicky" prices of last season. There uvas no doubt that one effect of the present season would l.e to mark 1907-8 as an exceptional season, and business next season was likely to resume its normal condition and* be move subject to the ordinary laws of supply and demand. DISCHARGING DAJIiY PRODUCE.

Under this heading Mr. Mackie said that valid reasons were always found for delays in discharging. The Thanus was only a certain width, and in it was congested the traffic of all nations. The slightest accident—a fog, a tide just missed, a hundred and one things that would not matter much anywhere else, meant everything there. 'Considering all the disadvantages under which New Zealand dairy produce was' handled, the manner in which butter and cheese on arrival were scattered throughout the length and breadth of the United Kingdom was little short of marvellous. Dil fereace of opinion existed as to dis charging the whole of Xeiw Zealand produce at the Royal Albert and Victoria Docks. When the Xew Zealand boat discharged its butter at the docks, it was sorted out there according to the different brands. That which required to /be sent to Tooley-strcet was' forup the river in barges, whilst produce intended for the West of England was sent by rail from the docks to its destination. Some people considered that it would be an advantage if all the New Zealand produce aunt to Hay's Wharf, Tooley-street, by "barges. The Australians landed all their produce at Tooley-street, and claimed that it was' the Irest. He thought it was host to leave well alone, for the present method had so .ninny advantages that it would be a mistake to consider any alteration. He could recollect on one occasion in the winter of 1007 a fog for seven days. The traffic on the river was very difficult, the result being that butter ex s.s. Mamari intended for the West Coast and North of England reached its destination by rail, while the dairy produce for London was' -slowly making its way up the river, hampered by the heavy fog. i DISADVANTAGE OF MAORI NAMES. It was immaterial whether the name of a company bore a Maori name or not, but it mattered a great deal iwlien one came to selling the butter or cheese in England, to have the brand with an unpronounceable title. He had never heard anybody attempt to- describe a brand of butter or cheese with a Maori name who did not bolt the word with a sort of an apology, and mumble it in ii desperate endeavor to cover his inability to pronounce it. A 'grocer, if he had once bad the brand that pleased could not remember the name with the same readiness as an English name. The word, say, Whangaiuomona, had no meaning to him. apart from the quality of the cheese, Shut a name such as "Triumph" bad a double meaning. It appealed to him as a word which he knows and understands; it stood as an idea of what the maker of the cheese desired to put into his work. If a buyer got a bad lot of cheese or butter with a Maori name, when he came on the market again, and ,\viis shown another factory's butter with still another Maori brand, he did not look at it with confidence. Affection and love for nil things Maori was all very well in its proper place, but sentiment did not sell cheese. Before any dairy company chose a brand, or changed it, they should ascertain that the naane was'not already in use in England as a mark to designate a butter or cheese. Brands should be so designed as to he free from overcrowding, and the name should be casily read on a broad line right across tire centre of the brand, not in Die circle. Jf a company would have a Maori name, it should only be used when short and easily remembered.

NEW ZEALAND v. DANISH BUTTER. During the past two years the difference in the price between Xew Zealand and Danish butter had gradually been reduced. From » set of table's compiled, extending over the past three (years, the difference worked out on I butter for the winter season, October 110 April, 191)11-7, 8s 2d. For the following year, 11)1)7-1808, the difference was 3s lOd, and 11)08 to the first we«k in April, 191)9, fi s . It would thus be seen that Xew Zealand had been .brought closer to Danish iby £3 to ,C 4 per ton. That was undoubtedly due to the better understanding that existed through the closer association of the leadi'ii<r agents and the colonial representative's of the dairy farmers. The reason for •the big difference this year was mainly owing to so many of the factories not being U p to their usual standard of quality, which was in a large measure due to the increase in the percentile of moisture by ;j to 4 per cent., and also to the foolish policy' which a large number of the factories 'had adopted of allowing the goods to be handled by ■ people who had no connection for the distribution, and therefore only tended to drag values down through 'their indiscriminate offerings. A factory mx'ht think when it ..sold',its muter' u t "an eighth or one-sixteenth more than its neighbor that it was doing well, but If seojue of the director.,' were to visit 'London and see how their produce was I handled, and the harm that was done to the inliistry through their going out at the regular channels, they would soon iind what they were niuki'mr fl t the spile they mere .losing at the hung. The ilillorence on cheese was very small, and that article did not seem to have been aide to overtake its Canadian competitor, a« it was expected it would do ! f a closer iwsocial-iuji could be brown t about. °

CANADA AXD THE CHEESE

MARKET

It was pointed out ], v .Mr. .Ifackie that many of the remark's on the marketlug of butter applied equally to cheese factories. During the past two years (here had been a steady run of business at .uniform prices. takiii"' it all round, Xew Zealand cheese had made exceedingly good prices during the past season, -although perhaps' not quite so high as some of the most sanguine of the speculators ;.■,,; |,.;. ,'ed, but sl il|, when New Zealai .■; ;,es got such a price as (Ms, Loudon, and over for their season's outputs, they were makiii" as' much as they could reasonably expect Jt was generally anticipated 'that the shipment of cheese from Canada would rot increase, hut ral'.her decrease .Fanners j„ Ontario, where the bulk of the rf'hc.'.<e was produced, had been doing very well, and m a general way were not working quite so hard as tiiey did a few years ago, whilst ; , good, many of thcut had gone to the North-Western districts of Canada, where land had been opened up freely and where money had been made easily through spcciihiinig m the laud; so that on the whole there were fewer poplc in Ontario making cheese to-day than there were fouror fire years ago, whilst the constant stream of immigration was naturally turning the country into a much lan«>r consuming power, am) tlu-ir surplus for export would, in his opinion, be considerably curtailed. Xew Zealand's great competitor in the iclieddar cheese trade was Canada, and „„ other country took the business of supplying the British public with cheese seriously.