BUTTER AND EGGS

Evening Post, Volume CXXIV, Issue 89, 12 October 1937, Page 8

BUTTER AND EGGS

(To the Editor.)

Sir, —How is it possible for the Government to make a success of internal marketing unless it raises the priceS of the commodities controlled to the consumers? "The Minister of Internal Marketing first borrows, say, £60,000, to buy a business and, then engages one of the owners of tliat business at £2000 a year to run all the. internal marketing of butter, cheese, eggs, and bacon in the Dominion. That is not all. The Department next employs >a staff whose salaries aggregate £14,530. To all this must be, added the sum of £8170 for general expenses, etc., in running the said business for one year. Thus there is a charge of nearly £25,000 a year for salaries and expenses to be added to the retail price of butter, etc., to the consumer, plus, say, £3000 a year interest on the £60,000 paid for the business. - The Minister expects the business will show a profit on the year's operations! Where is that profit to come from? Out of the pockets of the consumers; of the commodities controlled that are in daily use in every household in the Dominion.

With all that expense of control by a manager with the salary of a Supreme Court Judge, is it any wonder that already butter to the consumers in New Zealand is twopence a pound dearer than New Zealand butter is to the consumers of it in Great Britain? Eggs, usually Is to Is 2d retail at this season of the year, are this year, under the management of the Minister of Internal Marketing, priced at Is 3d to Is 5d retail. Cheese and bacon have proportionately advanced under the Minister's Internal Marketing scheme. lam sure that all supporters of the Minister will rejoice, with him that his control of these daily-used commodities is likely to show a profit and thus justify his scheme? Every housewife must. be ready to praise the Minister as she pays the increased prices to make the I butter and egg business a huge suc-| cess. I wonder!—l am, etc. J. D. SIEVWRIGHT. I