Our Butter Abroad

Taranaki Daily News, Volume LVI, Issue 270, 15 April 1914, Page 5

Our Butter Abroad

AN AUTHORITATIVE DENIAL. SLIPPERY CUSTOMERS' IN AMERICA. "NO FOUNDATION IN FACT." By Telegraph'—Press Association. Wellington, Last Night. Referring to the cabled comments regarding New Zealand butter on the American market, Mr. W. G. Hill, general manager of the Bristol and Dominions! 1 '.Product's 1 Assofciationi, states in an interview that the first portion of the cable furnished the key to the position by the fact that it revealed the correspondent's source of information. Mr. Hill remarked that on a falling or bad market buyers generally complain and in tnis case buyers tried'to get behind New Zealand grading, so as to do it as much damage as possible. "I have i>een connected," said Mr. Hill, "with Vancouver and 'Frisco shipping almost since its inception, and there has been greater difficulty in connection with shipments to these ports than anywhere else. There is a class of people doing business over there who seem to have an idea that if the market goes against tiiem they can repudiate any contract, and who will make up all sorts of excuses as a reason for doing so. What they would like is 'for us to send our butter over there to be sold on their ideas of grade; in other | words, to play into the hands \of the trust. Theso people have been doing their level best to block New Zealand butter and now they are attacking'the methods of grading. "1 have been connected with the industry for the past fifteen years, and known personally every grader during that time in New Zealand, and have on scores of occasions graded with numbers of them iii various grading stores and conferences; and 1 am quite satisfied that I am voicing tho opinion of the bulk of New Zealand merchants when I say that the strictures contained in the cablegram' are entirely without foundation. It has always been mv opinion that the graders erred, if at all, on the side of the buyer. "The last clause of the cable shows how uttgrly ridiculous the whole thing is, for the complaint is tSbat butter had been helu for thirty days after the Government had stamped it, a remedy being that butter should bo exported while still fresh. Now tne law requires that butter should be four days in the freezer before being exported, and we have only one boat a month to 'Frisco, so that you will see that it is quite likely that butter wijl Tie thirty days in store awaiting shipment. But it is none ithe worse for that. In fact, some of the best butter which we get in New Zealand is made during March and April and stored from then until July and August, when it is consumed bv people in New Zealand. "In conclusion," said Mr. Hill, "I think the Government should take up the matter of answering the accusation and removing the stigma on New Zealand butter and graders, I do not sav that mistakes have not been made. They alwill be made, but I am certain of this, that tlie statement in the cable that "first" grade opened as 'third" is almost impossible under our system.