GETTING IT BOTH WAYS.

Evening Post, Volume CVI, Issue 80, 15 October 1928, Page 12

GETTING IT BOTH WAYS.

The price of butter iti Australia would appear likely- to become so dear that the people as in Denmark will have to resort to margarine. The executive confei--cnce'of the Australian Primary. Producers' Union has decided to urge the Federal Government to grant an export bounty on butter of up to Gd per Ib. The union speaks for 14,000 dairy farmers. The union, therefore, is out to get it both waysAustralian parity for local sales through tho Paterson scheme, and by an export bounty which is now paid by the porducers out of the stabilisation levy fund. The president, Mr. P. Grant, who was ml the chair, briefly outlined in his report the benefits that'had accured from the operations of the Stabilisation Committee. For the first two years and eight- months of the existence of the scheme, he said, the dairymen benefited to the extent' of about 2d per'Hi" on every pound of butter produced, and for the concluding four, months of this year this would be increased to about 2V2d. Against this butter increase there might be little or no surplus for distribution ' for' the year 1925, .'because the fundsj which had shown a surplus in the past two years, would be absorbed through a larger export than usual, • and the iucreased bounty as from Ist September. Mr. Grant added that it was hoped in 1929 to increase the export bounty to 5d per Ib, which, in his opinion, was the limit of safety under ordinary conditions.