FUTURE BUTTER PRICES

Evening Post, Volume C, Issue 23, 27 July 1920, Page 6

FUTURE BUTTER PRICES

" It is not my purpose to discuss the economics of the situation. I only wish to point out the fact, which rests upon sound experimental evidence, that milk is an indispensable article of the diet of any people who wish to achieve."— Dr. M'Collum, Johns Hopkins Univer-

sity, in Hoard's Dairyman.

Professor M'Oollum might well have been addressing these words to New Zealand at the present time with the prospect of butter at 2s 6d pei- pound. The great argument that will be brought forward for raising butter to this impossible price is that it is worth 2s 6d per pound for export. If New Zealand cannot or will: not pay it, then someone else will. And not only butter but cheese, and, if these, then milk. Since 1915 to 31st Juno last the dairy-farmer of New Zealand has sold to the British Government produce to the value of over £29,000,000, and he has sold that produce every season at increasing prices. He first obtained 174s per cwt. (with profits) for butter, then 181s, and he expects fully 2405. For his cheese he first obtained 7Jd, then 9£d, next lOd, and finally IOJd, and now he expects fully 14d or more. In 1913-14 he did remarkably well if, after paying all freight, insurance, brokerage, and other charges, he sold butter at 116s and cheese at 7d in London. He would now argue: The produce ii worth to anyone dee 240» per cwt. for butUi' «n4 144 pir paund far ehuat h«v«

in New Zealand, and the people of New Zealand must fall into line or fall out.

Thiß is the cold-blooded and no doubt sound business argument-r-there are the articles, and there are the prices. It takes no count, however, of several important faotors which are here stated without further comment, for they do not need it: (1) Professor M'Collum's insistence upon milk foods as necessary to the good health of the people) (2) the production of the United Kingdom is not sufficient, therefore importation of butter and cheese are necessary, whereas New Zealand has a superabundance of them ti> the extent last year of 1,562,673 cwt. of cheese and 261,156 cwt. of butter exports j (3) the poorer people of the United Kingdom can fall back on margarine at half the price s of butter, but there is no relief of this kind in New Zealand? (4) the New Zealand taxpayer- all round contributes £1,000,000 a. year and more to the education and assistance of the farmer through the Agricultural Department, and engages the beat experts to teach and help him, In reply, he points to tho world's markets as dominating the price of tihe local situation, and that is all he sees. It ig just as well to Btate plainly and unreservedly here that a great part of the people will not be able to pay 2s (Sd per pound for butter, nor any corresponding increase in the price of milk or cheese. If that price stands they and their children must go without an absolutely essential food.

There remains the matter of Government subsidy, If that is continued, what is likely to be the amount required? The Government should tsll the country this, without delay. It is not at all a desirable method of keeping the cost of living from soaring to unknown altitudes, and it has its economic defects; but it has this feature, it compels the dairy farmer, along with everyone else, to take his share in the taxation that it must entail. The sale of butter to the Imperial Government terminates on Saturday, and after that, unlesß the position is changed, farmers will ba free to export where and when they will. The Government \hould let the country know before that what the people will Have to pay for a pound of butter in the future,