MILK PRICES

Evening Post, Volume CVI, Issue 32, 7 August 1923, Page 8

MILK PRICES

A REPLY TO COUNCILLOR

BENNETT.

Mr. J. M. Bertram, president of the Dairy Farmers' Association, has replied to the statement of the City Council's side of the milk prices controversy as set out by Councillor W. H. Bennett, chairman of the Milk Committee, in "The Post" on Saturday as follows :—

"In Councillor Bennett's reply to my statement he says I 'rushed into print.' As a matter of fact I told him I had always refrained from doing so, and asked him twice to correct the Mayor's statement, in justice to us. It would have come more gracefully from him than me. When he did not do so, and consumers were continually asking me if the statement was correct and charging us with 'profiteering,' a Press representative came to me for information. I" did not, as the statement appearing in Saturday's paper implied, seek him. If Councillor Bennett had acceded to my request, nothing would have appeared in the papers. "I would just like to point out that when Mr. Bennett took my figure of lO.lOd for summer milk this.year, that figure was 'freight off,' whereas he gives prices asked for next year 'freight on.' The freight is ljd, so to compare his figures with mine, that has to be deducted, and makes his 13.50 d only 12d, and 14.35 d only 13.85 d—a considerable difference."

By way of correction Mr. Bertram states that the Milk Committee did not promise to correct trie Mayoral statement, that the price being asked for milk was 50 per cent, above the present price, but thought that it would have been corrected after he had pointed out the error. The' price for last summer's milk qnoted by him (Mr. Bertram), lO.lOd per gallon, was at the farm, not at the depot.

In the course of the first statement made by Mr. Bertram, it was said that whilst the farmers received lO.lOd per Gallon for last summer's milk from the City Council, the public were charged at the rate of Is 8d per gallon. This should have been Is lOd per gallon. So that the margin for working expenses and profit was well over 100 per cent.