PRICE OF BUTTER

Press, Volume LVI, Issue 16946, 22 September 1920, Page 8

PRICE OF BUTTER

PARLIAMENTARY COMMITTEE'S INVESTIGATION. (PRESS ASSOCIATION TELEGRAM.) WELLINGTON, September 21. The Butter Prices Investigation Committee set up by the House of Representatives met again this morning. The first witness was Miss Coad, representing the New Zealand National Council of Women, who contended thattho people of the Dominion should not bo penalised in the price of products owing to the high values of land, which v.'cro more or less artificial. She advocated a controlled- price of butter and an export- tax. She also contended that- tne middleman should bo eliminated. as, in Wellington, experience showed that butter sold by direct supply stores was cheaper than that sold "by ordinary retailers.

C. 13. Norwood, in ' charge of tho Wellington city milk Rupplies t said that the City Council had no voice in the price it paid for milk, being governed by tho price fixed by the Board of Trade with the farmers. The result of the Council's operations had been to reduce somewhat the cost to tho consumer. Between the years 1915-16 and 1920-21, tho wholesale, price of milk had increased by 83 per cent., while the retail price had only increased by 68.42 per cent. The price charged to* consumers, summer and winter, was 8d per quart, and improvements at the milk station and in the method of distribution .would, still furtiher reduce the cost to the consumer, as soon as they could be j effected. No individual supplier could serve the people of the city as well or as cheaply as the Council was now doing. Any action taken bv the committee in regulating the price of butter must greatly affect the milk supply of tho cities. Tho danger of attacking butter was that all the products of the farm must also be attacked: otherwise production would be diverted from butter to something else. As the* best means of adjusting the present abnormal butter situation, he favoured an export tax, though he would interfere with thv) commercial system only with great reluctance! J. B. Macßwan gave evidence as to the increased costs in connexion with tho distribution. Butter distributors were asking in New Zealand only the same price as was allowed in Sydney under Government control.

Arthur Latham, farmer, Awahuri, who farms 70 acres, and who values his land at £64 per acre, produced a bal-ance-sheet showing that his loss was £74 14s 9d on the year's working, after allowing himself £200 as wages. This loss, to some extent, was augmented by the abnormal loss of stock, but, on the other hand, incidental expenses might have been less than normal. One of the difficulties which the dairy farmer had to face was the expenses he had to pay. Every time a farm was sold, the land agent took 15 per cent., the Government 6 per cent., and the lawyer 4 per cent. These were leeches living on the farmers. Ho could produce to the committee many cases in which farmers were working farms under distressing conditions. He thought that many farmers were doing better out of their families than out of their cowa. He thought his land would fetch £140 per acre in tho open market to-day. On that basis, the cost of production of a pound of butter-fat was 2s IOJd. The committee decided to resume its investigation on Thursday.