The Daily News. WEDNESDAY, JUNE 28, 1911. "KEEP YOUR POWDER DRY."

Taranaki Daily News, Volume LIV, Issue 3, 28 June 1911, Page 4

The Daily News. WEDNESDAY, JUNE 28, 1911. "KEEP YOUR POWDER DRY."

By far the most significant function among the many devised to mark the crowning of King George V. was the Royal review. As a mere "sight" the twenty-five miles of "grim, grey watchdogs of the deep" would be an unforgettable spectacle. But as a symbol of the power of the greatest Empire in all history they clamored in their ponderous magnificence—their unexampled ' grandeur, their fearful suggestion of destructiveness. To ponder on the destructive capability of their formidable engines of war is natural enough. Every inch of every one of the ships in that fleet was calmly designed for purposes of human destruction. Every officer, artificer, engineer, each highly trained specialist, every alert brain, quick hand, competent eye is specifically intended to effect the one fell purpose the destruction of lives and property. If there is comfort in the thought of an incomparably powerful navy, it is that its power is so great that it makes the Empire impervious to attack. Created for the destruction of life, it may defeat the object of its creation bv assuring peace. The greater its power, the less the likelihood that it will be called on to exercise it, merely because an overwhelming great engine of destruction, does not invite aggression, and unless the nations agree to cessation of warship building the assemblage of men-of-war in British waters on future great occasions may be .even greater, for the disposition of the dominions to build navies of their own is a recognition that the Imperial Navy is not great enough yet. The exhibition of pent-up strength, if it had been but devised to impress foreign potentates with the formidable nature of the fleet served a useful purpose. Indeed, it may be believed that the extraordinarily elaborate nature of the whole Coronation ceremony was diplomatically designed as an illustration of the supremacy of Britain as a world power. The effect of the display on Britishers themselves would be useful in emphasising the point that what Britain has is worth holding, and that—in the interval that elapses before universal peace is achieved—it is necessary to "keep the powder dry."

hind who have shipped their butter Home on open consignment for the season just closing can easily set their losses down at £(Hi/100. The average loss on the ( sUilf thus shipped, as compared with the prices on free offer last August may be taken at £'■) per ton. The butter for which ll'Vid was freely offered in New Zealand hardly realised that price after the freight and charges to London had oeen paid. For this a variety of causes are responsible. The chief, of course, was the wonderful increase of Australia. For every box of :New Zealand butter sent forward over three were sent from tne Commonwealth. A great deal of this was sent oAs.open consignment, and no doubt was a,material factor in beat-, ing down the iiiarkct. When the National Daily Association entered into the "trust," "combine" or "corner," by which the whole of the butter they could oonnnand was to go to one firm, the nand of every man in the trade was immediately turned against them. Though there were nominally four firms included in the "trust," it was a case of one firm first and the rest nowhere; for no sooner had the compact been entered into than the whole influence of the active members of the Association was used to induce factories to ship to one only of the four firms. The representatives of the other firms, for the first time in their experience, had not only to battle with their competitors, but had to put up an extra fight against the Association itsen. How bitterly these three firms resented having to "walk the plank" can be easily understood. The stale old dodge that had won the ear of the Association had already been engineered in New Zealand fifteen years before. When it was carried out the first time, Cabinet Ministers were rung in to add weight to the proposal. The then recently imported dairy expert, Mr. C. R. Valentine, baited the trap with the names of the present Premier and the late Sir John MacKenzie. Consignors were to get half the commission back a? a rebate when the company had had fi dividend of 6 per cent. The selling commission was therefore to be only a trifle like 1%, or at most 2 per cent., and the bait was bitten like a hungry dog snapping at a meaty bone. Needless to say, not a brass farthing of commission was ever refunded, and the whole of the consignments met a very sorry fate. The scheme fathered by the National Dairy Association, unlike its predecessor, had no Cabinet Ministers for its foster fathers. Looking back at the proposal' now (continues the Dairyman), it seems difficult to determine what to admire most—the colossal impudence of the • scheme or its amazing stupidity. Controlling little more than one-fortieth part of the supply of England, we think the palm must be given to the stupidity of it. Let us picture the position in London last season. Merchants who had supplied their customers with New Zealand easily satisfied their customers with the best Australian; and, as supplies of of this were large, sales were steadily and persistently pushed. As week after week of this continued, the pressure on the holders of New Zealand became terrific. The total number of merchants luindling New Zealand \and Australian butter in England and Scotland easily { exceeds one hundred. Each of these had men on the road and brokers in the; street offering butter to arrive in quantities never sent before by the Common- , wealth. Being ~.q bout. per pound J , cheaper, it the retailer an ex-! tra profit, whereas the more expensive I New Zealand, if it did not show a loss to the retailer. l<eft a very narrow margin. Large quantises of Australian, too, were J on open consignment, for two or three, similar "trusts" in Australia had bitten' at the same bait; and then arrivals , of Australian were three times as great as those from this country. The drafts that had to he met were three times as numerous and three times as large, and money to meet them had to be provided. As the season advanced the intensity • • >

the situation became daily more acute. Hundreds of the forty thousand grocers who had hitherto sold New Zealand were glad to take the cheaper Australian, and in many cases no difference in quality was noticed. All this time the shipments from New Zealand grew bigge: and bigger. A steamer leaving here in October would only nave four thousand boxes, but a sister ship leaving in December would be carrying fifty thousand, for which it was necessary to provide well over £IOO,OOO. With the supply from Australia increased by 200 per cent, it is easily seen that sales of New Zealand must suffer.

A MISTAKEN POLICY. Continues the Dairyman:—"A promise' had been made to the factories that if a, certain quantity of batter were handled by the trust they would thus have the power to 'lever up the price to its true value.' But the author of this neat phrase certainly reckoned without his host. All the strong financial firms were outside the ttus>t. The position was therefore very simple. TJiey had the money; the other fellow had the butter. The sequel is oid'enough, for the loss has been nearly, if not quite, a penny a pound. In the' words of that one man who knows more tlian all the rest of the people in New Zealand about the English market, the factories who entered into the 'combine.' had 'played right into the hands of the buyers.' Great pains are taken to keep the .trade up to date as to shipment* coming forward from the Commonwealth and Xe\y Zealand, the amount carried by each ship being cabled as soon as the bills of lading are made out. With this information to hand the buyers knew what ' to do, and they did it. As long as theif. hilars held one box of any butter tjiii't would fill their requirements, tlidj' i;en> only conspicuous on the market'by their absence. Multiple shopkeepers' tf-ho had bought'in previous years ten thousand boxes to arrive in November and December took care to buy nothing forward. No sales were made except at the urgent solicitation of the seller. These, too. were only made from hand to mouth. Practically every man in the .trade had taken car- to secure a copy of the famous circular, which exposed the whole hand of the '•trust. - ' The exact strength of the position in Tooley-street was known ).<> everyone. Seventy-five per cent, of the Australian output coming Home on open gnment! liven (he veriest novice in commerce knew what to do. There was only one wait. Each week of waiting meant some more money saved The difference in price for the four preceding years between New Zealand and Danish butter had averaged 7s per hundredweight. The promoters of the combine" said tlii.s 'difference was iniquitous. and solely due to want of combination. When die combine started there was practically no New. Zealand butter on the market. The nominal difference was only 83. per hundredweight, and even this was to ln>'reduced. Before however, the "trust" had been .join* many weeks the'difference was up to 7s! l'his gap was soon doubled, and the difference was 14s—nearly half as, much again as 11, lia-d ever been before. Hut even this was not all. As supplies from New Zealand went 011 increasing, so did the width of the gap, until it reached ,18s. or just 011 -2d a pound. The guarantee that the difference in price between Danish and Xew Zealand duriivn the *va*on October to March, lfllO-11. should be ess than in the same period of 1!)()!)-10 had become 11 laughing .stock long before the gap widened to its greatest limits, its Kwit

of 18s, any hopes of the guarantee being made good vanished into thin air. It wan the old story of the dog and the bone. In grasping at the snadow these unfortunate factories had missed the substance. Instead of saving one-half per cent, on the'commission rates, their losses have been exactly eighteen times the half per cent. Certainly no greater fiasco in commercial circles was every accomplished. The position in reference to the cheese consigned was somewhat different. There was no Canadian ehceee on open consignment with which to beat down the price. All the Canadian output is sold in Canada. What Canadian was held by English holders, there, could not be sacrificed even to break the market for New Zealand. Therefore t9ie price remained normal until the new Canadian commenced to make its appearance, when a sharp fall began. No one supposes for a moment that this was due to the fact that these supplies from the great Dominion were ready to go into consumption, but the fact that they had passed into the hands of the merchants of England enabled forward sales to be made, with the result that the market broke at onco, and prices for our cheese fell rapidly. The moral of the year's experience is that sending goods to the other end of the world on open consignment is to deliberately play into the hands of the buyer, and as this applies to open consignments in every article of commerce it is surely absurd to contend that what is right for every other commodity is wrong for dairy produce. Our producers, however, have had one pretty costly lesson. If they elect to have another' they have only themselves to blame."