RISE IN COSTS.

Auckland Star, Volume LXVII, Issue 292, 9 December 1936, Page 5

RISE IN COSTS.

BUTTER FACTORIES. WAIKATO DISTRICT OUTPUT. ESTIMATED AT £3 PER TON. "It is possible now to get a view of the probable increased factory costs in butter manufacturing for the current year," states the secretary of the Morrinsville Co-operative Dairy Company, Limited, in a statement which he has isued on behalf of the company. "Our own figures reveal the following increases:—Cream collection, £2000; boxes, £3000; wages, £2000; sundries, freezing, etc., £1800; total, £10,000. Our anticipated output this year will be 3400 tons, so that the increase is, roughly speaking, £3 a ton of butter manufactured. "Taking the Waikato output of butter at 70,000 tons for the year, the extra cost is calculated to be £210,000 for the period, which is interest upon a capital of £4,200,000 at ~> per cent per annum. It may be accepted that the average carrying capacity of Waikato country is a cow to two acres, so that 700,000 cows are milked to produce the butter tonnage on 1,400,000 acres. "The increased capitalisation of £4.200,000 is really a burden of £3 an acre over this country, and yet the only trouble is land values, according to the spokesmen of the Government. Is the position not clear that, through the operations of the Mortgagors and Lessees Rehabilitation Act, the interests of the mortgagees are to "be filched for the lire of the people who cause the rise in costs?" i