Evening Post. MONDAY, OCTOBER 11, 1920. CIRCUMSTANCES ALTER CASES

Evening Post, Volume C, Issue 88, 11 October 1920, Page 6

Evening Post. MONDAY, OCTOBER 11, 1920. CIRCUMSTANCES ALTER CASES

To a plain' man not versed in. the high finance of £h© dairying industry,, the events of the last year may be somewhat perplexing. It is only a little time ago that Wellington citizens were so bombarded with country complaints about the low price oi' milk that they began to ask themselves seriously whether they were "exploiting" the milk supplier. They were told of the woes of milking during the snort winter days, and of the crushing cost as well as the hardship of producing winter milk. They were made to feel that they were suspected of being very mean people indeed, and they were roundly threatened that unless they paid out for, their milk more liberally they would lose their milksuppliers, who would turn to the comparative ease and affluence of supplying a butter factory or a cheese factory. Why should the milk-supplier work day in and day out, in light and ip dark, all the year round, and drive his children to it also, just to supply those rotund close-fisted persons in the city? Why should all this hardship bo suffered on the farms when the factory would take every drop of their milk and leave the farmer with his winter free? Following upon these complaints, steps were taken to hinder the erection of factories within a certain radius of Wellington, for fear that oui^ badly treated milk suppliers would rush in a body into butter or cheese production. After looking at themselves steadily through the milksupplier's spects,cles, and after considering the general situation, the people of Wellington were comparatively relieved in mind—and, ir> pocket, actually relieved —when the Board of Trade stepped in and fixed prices that have since, with fluctuations, prevailed. And we can find no record of any buttar-producer standing up to warn the people of Wellington that brother milk-supplier was over-stating his case. Nor have we heard that any of the recent critics of the price of milk forewarned the Board of Trade of the elusive qualities of the people it was dealing witii.

Now, howevei-, it would seem, from certain current writings, that instead of milk needing to-be forcibly prevented from converting itself into butter, butter is yellow with jealousy of mill;. No longer is the emphasis placed on the woes and expensse of winter production. Instead of that the consumer is asked to believe that as ha is paying four shillings (or is it six?) per pound of butter-fat for his milk, he should simply fall prone with gratitude at the prospect of escaping with 2s 6d or 2s lOd for butter. " Codlin's your enemy, not. Short," whispers one adviser. "Butter land has gone so high in price," says another, "that unless butter goes up in proportion the dairy farmer's march to the Bankruptcy Court is i;wift and certain." Then a, third comes along with a story of 365 days of work a year (which the city man used to think was a .monopoly of the milk-supplier) and a fourth rubs in child slavery (which, farmers have declared, has no existence). Altogether it is a bewildering state of affairs. Hitherto the uninitiated town-dweller has sought in his feeble way to accredit the higher price of milk, as) cqmpai'ed with butter, to winter dairying. But when Mr. Strand tells thc> present generation of dearer butter advocates that he receives an extra l^d from the Wellington Hospital Board for a 100 per cent, winter production, they will not listen to his explanation. So what can the towndweller think of it all? But until they explain winter production and set it out in some new light, they will not convince the general audience that Mr. Strand has, considering the special circumstances of the hospital supply, made a harder bargain than other suppliers. Of course, the genera! run of dearer butter advocates do not specifically say that milksuppliers are exploiters. They only say that milk-supplwrs are receiving about twice as much an butter-producers would be- glad to receive. Reading one part of their evidence, this seems to put the milk-supplier on velvet. Beading, another part of it, the milk-supplier would seem to be in a sorry plight, for he is nearer than any other landowner to that demon of land value increment that waits upon high prices and is for ever upraising the cost of production.

Instead of using the Board of Trade's fixed milk prices as a convenient gauge, instead of trying to pillory Mr. Strand for something in which all milk-suppliers more or less participate, and instead of ignoring his offer to let one of them take his place as hospital supplier, the butter producers should press for a competent inquiry into the economic conditions of all milk products. The Butter Committee's inquiry was insufficient in scope and capacity. Apparently it did not call any member of the Board oi Trade, and did not have before it any of the evidence- taken by the Board before fixing prices. There is a lack of co-ordination about the whole affair. If mi* prices are too high (or too low) butter prices should not be fixed proportionately, for two wrongs do not make one right. A peculiar feature about the butter campaign against price-fixing is that it ignores the fact that price-fixing is the established policy of .the Government, that the farmers have demanded minimum prices fo? wheat, and that some producers who ai'i not allowed to charge ejiport value recoivo no compensating subsidy.