GUARANTEED PRICE.

Auckland Star, Volume LXVII, Issue 185, 6 August 1936, Page 8

GUARANTEED PRICE.

"NOT ACCEPTED AVERAGE."

MR. C. P. AGAR'S CRITICISM.

(By Telegraph.—Press Association.)

QHRISTCHURCH, Wednesday

The guaranteed price for dairy produce is not the accepted average for the last eight to 10 years, but is a weighted average, according to Mr. C. P. Agar, managing director of Tai Tapu Dairy Company, and a member of the former Dairy Board.

"The farmer will be bitterly disappointed," Mr. Agar said. "The true price average over the last eight years was 12.7Gd, over nine years 13.03 d, and over 10 years, 13.59 d. It is difficult to understand how the price was arrived at, especially in view of the statement by Mr. Nash at Hastings that the guaranteed price would be a generous price, and further, that it would be a better price than for the last season. The general expectation was that the price would be 1/IJ, but when the Minister said the average would be given a generous interpretation the ideas of price rose to 1/2. I have yet to meet the person in the dairy industry," Mr. Agar said-, '''who expected less than 1/1 A. One can only conclude that the price is not an average but a weighted average, the net result of which is that the dairy farmers will receive ail increase in the cost of production, with no benefit under the Government's policy of guaranteed prices."