DEAR BUTTER.

Auckland Star, Volume LI, Issue 211, 3 September 1920, Page 4

DEAR BUTTER.

RISE OF 6O PEB CENT. GOVERNMENT UNLIKELY TO rSTEREERE. (Special Correspondent.) WELLINGTON, September 3. It seems certain now that the retail price of butter from the beginning of next month will ibe at least 2/9 a pound, and quite possibly ac much as 3/ a pound. The arrangement made between the Government and the Imperial authorities for passing into consumption a quantity of requisitioned tmttra- remaining in store here has go far kept the price down to 1/9, but this source of supply will be exhausted by the end of the current month, and then the price set by the Imperial authorities' purchaee of the new season's output at 280/ a hundredweight will come into operation. Whether this, taking the retailers' charges into account, will work out at 2/9 or more remains to be ILAST STRAWS. Meanwhile there is very •widespread dismay at the prospect of a rise of 60 per cent or more in the price of dairy products, universally regarded as among the most eseential of the necessaries of life. The newspapers are being deluged with letters on the subject, Ministers are being bombarded with protests, and thi dairy farmers are toeing threatened with retaliatory measures. The price of milk, of course, is determined by the price of butterfat, and the Imperial authorities' purchase means not only that the price of butter for local consumption will he enormously increased, but also that the price of milk will be raised in a similar ratio. Even at present prices many a hardly-pressed housewife is scraping together as much ac 12/ or 15/ a week for milk and butter, and the 60 per cent increase will ibe the last straw in her hard lot. THE WORKERS' THREATS. It was reported months ago that the workers on the Wellington wharves would refuse to handle butter for export if the local price of the commodity rose above 2/ a pound. The officials of the men's unions do not confirm this story, but they are ready enough to recite a score of reasons why the price should not scar so high. The arguments are quaintly impracticable, but they certainly display a desire to get at the root of things. They claim, for instance, that the consumers in Wellington are paying the interest on the mortgages, sometimes ten or a dozen deep, on the Taranaki dairy farms, and thus bearing the burdens which should belong <o the land and the profiteering landlords. The world's market does not enter into their scheme of economics. It rises superior to such triflee. THE GOVERNMENT'S ATTITUDE. As far as can be judged from his public utterances, Mr. Masscy has no intention of intervening between dairy farmers and their good fortune. On returning from his last trip Home he let it be clearly understood he had no sympathy with schemes for reducing the ■price of butter at the expense of the producer alone. If there were any reduction at all it must be at the cost of the whole community. The contention J was quite in accord with the te&cliinss lof the text 'books, and no one was affronted or greatly perturbeH when thr fanners who had contributed to tne Equalisation Fund were reimbursed from the Consolidated Fund. On this occasion, however, there seems likely to be no attempt to gild the pill of dear butter. It will have to be swallowed in all its nakedneee and paid for accordingly.