PRIMARY PRODUCTS.

Taranaki Daily News, 30 March 1921, Page 7

PRIMARY PRODUCTS.

VIEWS OF SIR T. MACKENZIE. THE MEAT SITUATION. The situation on the Home market and factors affecting New Zealand primary products were discussed by Sir Thomas Mackenzie the other evening in an interesting interview with a Lyttleton Times reporter? Sir Thomas said : “Looking broadly at what were the meat stocks last year in this country, the stocks in transit and in cool store in the Old Country together with the unprecedented quantities that were sent away from New Zealand and Australia in 1920, and comparing that position with what exists now, it seems incomprehensible that values should have fallen as they have fallen. Last year New Zealand sent away 9,600,000 carcases of mutton and lamb to America and Great Britain. That was three and a half times as much as she sent away in 1.918. Australia sent 5,500,000 carcases of mutton and lamb, which represents twelve times as much lamb as she sent in 1918, and twenty-six times as much mutton. The stocks, in store in May 1920, in New Zealand were something like 7,000,000 ; a considerable quantity was in transit, and there were 5,000,000 carcases in the stores at Home. ' I have not the figures of the quantity in store in New Zealand now, but I should not think they are more than a couple of millions-. In reply to a cable sent by the National Mortgage and Agency Company last week, they were informed that 1,500,000 carcases was the quantity in store at Home now. I have not been able to verify prices, but I think I am correct in saying that until quite recently lamb was still seeing at the issue price of Is Id per lb. wholesale, and mutton in proportion. If, therefore, those enormous stocks could be disposed of at the commandeered, controlled price, it seems incomprehensible that the much smaller quantity going forward should not be absorbed at the same rates. I know there are factors such as unemployment, and that the economic situation at Home is not good. Yet the people must be fed. During the period of high wages, many of them purchased highpriced home-grown meat, and now with less and poorer pay there is notning that can supply the meat food they require so well, and at so reasonable a price, as New Zealand meat. South America is often quoted as a great competitor of New Zealand, but South America has yearly been going back in her supplies of mutton and lamb. Ten years ago she exported over 4,000)000, and last year her exports were less than 2,000,000 carcases. “BADLY HANDLED.” “I ought to say that one factor in clearing stores at Home was the reduction of prices by the Food Controller. Some o-f those reductions did not show him a profit, and that was due entirely to his holding, up unduly his stocks of meat when the people wanted them and weie prepared to pay good prices. Far too great a quantity of lamb was sold and sent to the United States of America. The amount sold, 3,000,009 carcases, was more than the American market could possibly absorb. By that action the Home authorities starved the best market we have, namely, Great Britain. There was an enormous demand for lamb when I left the Old Country. One man in Bristol, who controls a number of shops, said that lie could easily take 5000 carcases a week if he could only get them, but he had almost to beg before he could get a few, and then he had to take a quantity of other meat, wjiich he did not want, to get it. In Cardiff I was assured by the trade that they could take a total of 1,000,000 •carcases of mutton and lamb a year, but again they could not get supplies. I thinl? that the meat situation was badly handled after it was transferred from the Board of Trade to the Food Controller. At the Board of Trade, Sir Thomas Robinson was the chief adviser in the Meat Department and he rendered valuable service. WOOL AND RUTTER.

“Wool is controlled by a gentleman who is not a wool man, with the result that stocks were held up when there was a good' demand at satisfactory prices. That caused congestion. The price sei for wool made the manufactured article beyond, the purchasing power of the general public. Of course I am aware that the practical stoppage of the German and Austrian mills for so long a period checked the use of much wool, but the waste of woollen goods and. replacements (due to war would counteract that to some extent.

“In connection with butter, we get cables out which, on the face of them, would make it appear that Great Britain is going to be inundated with butWr from Denmark. Some little time ago, a cable came from Home, stating that all the butter that Denmark could export was available for the British market, and that she had quadrupled her exports to Britain. On reading that, one would suppose they were giving an ordinary year’s exports from Denmark, but what is an ordinary year’s exports? Statistics show us that before the war she sent 80,000 tons of butter to Great Britain, and that Britain imported a total of 200,000 tons from all sources. So if the 80,000 tons were quadrupled, that would represent 320,000 tons, which would be 120,000 tons above all that Britain imported from all sources, which is, of course, absurd. The returns that I have read show that Denmark produced last year somewhat less than 37,000 tons of butter, d? which Britain took 14,000 tons. If, therefore, the 14,000 tons were quadrupled, that would represent 56,000 tons* which would be still 26,000 less than Great Britain’s ordinary imports per year during pre-war days. You can see how misleading cables of that description are when those interested are without authentic figures.”