FARM AND DAIRY.

Taranaki Daily News, 15 April 1921, Page 3

FARM AND DAIRY.

BUTTER MARKET REVIEWED. An interesting review of the local position and of overseas market prospects is given by one of the largest export and local distributing firms in the Dominion. In a letter to clients it is stated, inter alia:— The Government has expressed the opinion that the retail price should not exceed 2s 3d per lb. As a matter of fact we understand that the Government is making arrangements to supply butter from its stocks at a price that will enable it to be retailed at 2s 3d. If this is so, the manufacturers' may have no option but to sell at this price, or else export their winter make, and, judging from reports coming to hand from America and the United Kingdom, it is very doubtful if butter exported would show as satisfactory a return as it would if sold locally at, say, Is 11 Ad per lb at the factory. No doubt the Government had in mind the downward tendency of prices in other countries when giving its ideas as to value. To give you some idea as to the difference in prices this year as against last, our New York agent, writing on February 11, quoted choicest quality 43A to 44 cents, as against. 67 cents for the same day last year. It is thought in some quarters that price* in the United Kingdom will show declines perhaps as severe as this. At this junc-