THE BUTTER PROBLEM.

Auckland Star, Volume XLVIII, Issue 159, 5 July 1917, Page 6

THE BUTTER PROBLEM.

A BIG DEPUTATION. REPLY BY PRIME MINISTER. (By Telegraph.—Parliamentary Reporter.) WELLINGTON, this day. A large deputation of dairy constituency members interviewed Mr. Massey and the Hon. W. D. S. Mac Donald, urging the abolition of the butterfat levy and a. refund of money collected. Objection was taken to it as a class tax. The deputation considered the Government should have dealt with butter as with wheat, any loss on the transaction falling on the country, to be nreferably paid by a graduated income tax. It represented a tax of 15/ per cow.'

Mr. Mac Donald stated that tbe amount of the levy paid was £238,000, with £17,444 outstanding. There were 517 factories which ha-d not paid anything. The whole sum would be returned to the industry when an adjustment was com-' pleted by July 13. Meat producers had been obliged "to sell their produce at a price which meant a difference of 115 per cent on the English retail price, though butter producers got within 6 per cent of the English retail price. Mr. Massey stated, regarding the shipping difficulty, that so fjr as he was able to judge, sufficient butter woujd be taken away from the cool stores. especially in the North Island, where the season commenced earlier, to enable butter factories to go on with the manufacture at the ordinary time, if the season began on August Ist. Mr. Young asked the Government tc specially consider Auckland, where 170,000 boxes of butter were stored, and 10,000 people depended on the butter industry alone.

Mr. Massey: 'Tm making a special effort to relieve the congestion there. I will be able to speak more definitely in a few days." He would ask Cabinet to consider if a better solution of the butter price difficulty could be arranged, also to consider the advisability of providing more cool storage.