PRICE OF BUTTER

Evening Post, Volume XCVI, Issue 136, 5 December 1918, Page 7

PRICE OF BUTTER

NO INCREASE TO BE MADE.

Inhere is to be no advance for the next two years in the present retail prico of Is M per 1b for factory butter. This statement was made by Mr. C. P. Agar. who is a South Island representative on the Dominion Butter Committee, to the Ohristcburoh Sun.

The committee, Mr. Agar stated, is not only able to guarantee this, but also that Dominion requirements will be supplied. This had previously been voluntarily decided on. The method by which the Dominion market will be kept supplied is. as follows:—If the Dominion merchants are to be supplied with bntter> say, at Is 6d per lb, the committee will arrange for an advance to esqysrters on their shipments up to this amount Then from the balance remaining exporters will be paid the^actual f.o.b. outlay, and the sum remaining will be divided between tho factories pro rata on their output, whether distributed locally or shipped. Thus factories will receive exactly the same return for butter, whether sold on the Home or New Zealand market. Roughly, by this method of keeping down the local price below the Home one, the New Zealand public saved £300,000 per year, and at the end of the term of two years since the system of Imperial purchases was made, there would have been saved one and a-quarter million pounds. Regarding the increased price' secured by exporters of 181s, as compared with 157s per cwt last year, Mr. Agar stated that last year factories participated in the Home market profits. For the latter, a final adjustment equal to 17s per cwt. had been submitted to the committee, which made/last year's price 1745.. The present price" therefore only constituted an advance of 7s per cwt.