The New Zealand Railways Magazine, Volume 5, Issue 1 (May 1, 1930)
Soil v. Synthetics
Soil v. Synthetics.
Besides exporting human brains, New Zealand exports a great deal of primary produce (food and raw material), and so little manufactured goods that the latter hardly count. Exported wool and butter meet with the competition of synthetic rivals, and some little time ago London cabled “nothing but the shipwreck of a couple of steamers each with 10,000 cases of butter aboard can prevent the butter market from further collapsing.” The principal factor in the decline “is the increasing consumption of margarine, which is now marketed of excellent quality at prices ranging from 8d. to 1/- as compared with 1/9 for butter.” Couple this with the statement made in New Zealand by Mr. W. Goodfellow (organiser of a New Zealand-Australian butter-marketing scheme) that the Margarine Union holds a controlling interest in 6,000 shops; also that, Auckland province's production of dairy produce, at present rate of expansion, will double in ten years. So it is very important to New Zealand to sell more butter in the United Kingdom, in Canada, etc. But while New Zealand wishes to sell butter in Canada, and Canada wishes to sell timber in New Zealand, local producers in either case may have other views.
A Charming Landscape Scene in the Mid-North Island Country
(Rly Publicity Photo)
The Makohine Viaduct, which spans a beautiful gorge on the run between Ohingaiti and Mangaonoho, on the North Island Main Trunk Line. This viaduct is a notable engineering work of steel-lattice towers set on concrete piers. It is 750ft. in length, and rises to a height of 240ft. above the stream in the gorge.