OUR DAIRY PRODUCE.

Taranaki Daily News, 1 July 1920, Page 6

OUR DAIRY PRODUCE.

THE MARKETING SCHEME. THE LION AND THE Mr- E. Maxwell (Oaonui) writes:— Sir,—lt would be well for producers, before they commit themselves, to carefully consider various aspects of the proposed produce marketing scheme. I desire to put one aspect. The promoters say that the C.W.S., who are large buyers of Danish butter, are prepared to give up purchasing Danish butter and buy ours in place. What ] are the known facts? Beside that there is much Danish milk being diverted from . butter making, the Americans are buying i large quantities of Danish butter, and will be still larger buyers. The result of this is that, a very much less quantity , of Danish butter 'will be available for j the English market than there has been I hitherto. Now, if the promoters of the wild-eat marketing scheme would leave things alone instead of trying to sell the producers to the C.W.S., tins shortage of i Danish butter for England would result , not only in Tooley Street being forced j to be keener buyers of New Zealand but- j ter, but also would force the C.W.S. to j enter in competition against them, all to the advantage of the producers. On the other hand, what do the astute gentlemen, the promoters of the scheme, want us to do? It is this—to strangle -this competition by calling off the C.W-S. as competitors, entering into an arrangement with them by which, instead of competing in the open market and paying in full at once for their purchases, , thev are to have an equal share with the j producers, the owners of the produce, m | fixing the price at which they may buy, j and instead of paying full f.0.b., as Too- i lev Street buyers do, to pay only 40 per ; cent, (as contribution of one-half of an 80 per cent advance) on which and tms is the screaming joke of all —we are to par them interest! Can we imagine a farmer with a line of bullocks going to a stock sale with them when there is a shortage, and seeing that, besides some twenty of the ordinary buyers, there is a new competitor who badly .wants his bullocks, calls him down and. says: "Look here, dont you go bidding up the price of these bullocks that you want badly and that all the others want, but let us fix the price between us. You take them at that, and, instead of paying me in full, pay me 40 per cent., and I will pay you interest on it, too. The other 60 per cent, will do when you get the meat into your shops. I know what the promoters will say to this—that it is all nonsense, but is it? Is not this just exactly what this part of their scheme amounts to? They will also say they are not going to sell to the C.W.S., but will sell in the open market, that the C.W.S. will be just a buyer on the same footing as any other. Theu why the scheme at all? Why is the ' C.W.S. to be half the London company ? Why are they—one buyer—to have the privilege of a half share in fixing the price? Why add two new middlemen, the New Zealand company and the London "moonshine" company, with all the great attendant expenses, if the produce is to go on the open market? Jt would simply mean that all the supposed abuses and imaginary extortions, >vliich the promoters profess to be so anxious to eliminate, would De perpetuated, and have added to them an absolutely unnecessary 2 per cent, commission. Really is it not futile to try and disguise the undoubted fact that in prac-

Wee it will be the C.W.S. that is going, j with the assistance of the promoters of I the scheme, to take us in—"the lion and the lamb," as I think Mr. J. R. Corr'.- t gan put it, and a very hungry lion, too? I