The Daily News. WEDNESDAY, JULY 15, 1914. DAIRY PRODUCE EXPORTS.

Taranaki Daily News, Volume LVII, Issue 49, 15 July 1914, Page 4

The Daily News. WEDNESDAY, JULY 15, 1914. DAIRY PRODUCE EXPORTS.

The "reform" instituted liy tlmt enter

prising ;iI1([ versatile member of tile Cabinet, the Hon. V. Al. 11. Kisher, in the compilation of the export returns from the ports of the Dominion, and which has fortunately now been jettisoned, is responsible for the very misloading position in which Taranaki is placed in the returns for the year ending .lime ;il). Taranaki is credited liy Depurtnient of Agriculture with the export of but ,€4(W/2j2 of butter and cheese cheese. How erroneous the figures are, is shown by the fact that Taranaki's exports for the same period of the previous year amounted to £1,427,558, ahd it is well known that our exports for th<! past year have increased considerably. Wellington is given credit for Taranaki's dairy produce to the value of more than a million pounds sterling. In 1912-3 Wellington was credited with exportiug dairy produce to the value of £71li.:!?8.

This ,>ear it has jumped to £2,043,348. No doubt the enhanced returns ire highly pleasing to the good.people of t!m capital city, including the Minister lo> Marine, as outward and visible I niony to the development and prosperity of this district, but they are decidedly misleading to the outside world and unfair to 'l'aranaki's. As a matter of fact, much of our produce, railed and otherwise, has in the past appeared in the Wellington re turns, Taranaki never receiving credit for it. But that was a small matter compared with the resyiia of the Minister's abortive efforts to centralise the returns. Happily Air. Fisher has had brought home to him the futility of continuing the innovation, and flhe next returns should reveal the extent of Taranaki's quota of dairy products, but the harm has been done* as the figures for the period under review can never be taken as an index of the exports of either Wellington or Tannaki. Accurate comparison can in feh a future, therefore, never be possible SO far as 1913-14 is concerned. The dairy exports of New Zealand as a whole for the past year show a considerable growth. The total was £4,365,084, as against £3,928,876 last year, and £2,977,711 for 1911-12. Of the £436,208 increase last year, butter contributed £137,208 and cheese £298,910. Theis ligures represent increases in butter of 6.72 per cent., and in cheese of 15.84 per cent., the aggregate increase being ov ir 11 per cent. A more striking indication of the development in dairying during recent years is afforded by a comparison between the latest returns and those for 1910-11. During the four years, imo export of butter has increased by liearlv 25 per cent., while the shipments o» cheese show an increase of over 92 per cent. Exports of the two eommoditi-a last season were almost of equal value, but cheese was greater by CS73B. an ! that excess, as a reviewer in the Auckland Herald states, will probably be 1 greatly increased during the coming sea. son. Though a high standard of pries was maintained for cheese, the overseas markets for butter were depressed wh n n shipments made at the height of the season reached them, and ihere is a very strong feeling in the dairying districts ' that the manufacture of cheese will hi I more profitable in future than the male- I ing of 'butter, During the season tlie value of butter-fat has been higher lor cheese than for butter by from l%d to 2d per lb. It will please Auckland to know that it produced more than halt l!hc Dominion's butter exports, and nr doubt we shall be told that the great northern province leads New Zealand in dairy production. But whilst Auckland confines itself to butter-making, Taranaki is rapidly going out of butter tor cheese. In 1912-13 we turned out £1.000,412 of cheese and only- £42(i,!)41i tiutter. And it is safe to say that there lias been a substantial increase this year in the manufacture of cheese and that, the figures, were they available, won' I reach one and three-quarter millions. Auckland's butter was valued at £V 118,236. and cheese £75.331, so that Taranaki, whatever our modest northern friends may say to the contrary, must still be regarded as the leading dairy province of the Dominion.