CHEESE INDUSTRY

Evening Post, Volume CXXV, Issue 145, 22 June 1938, Page 13

CHEESE INDUSTRY

ASSISTANCE SOUGHT

MINISTER'S PROMISE

(By Telegraph—Press Association.)

NEW PLYMOUTH, This Day.

A large and representative deputa" tion of cheese manufacturers of the Manawatu and West Coast, Taranaki, Hawke's Bay, Wairarapa, and Bush Districts waited on the Minister of Finance (the Hon. W. Nash) this morning and placed before him various aspects of the cheese-making industry and the fixing of the price for cheese for the coming season.

The Minister's reply to the representations was that the industry as a whole was of the greatest'importance from a national point of view, and a proper relation between butte'r and •cheese must be maintained. U cheese makers went wholly over to-butter the market would collapse and that would mean disaster for everyone, The Government would keep before them fall considerations which maintained a balance between cheese and butter.

It was not a case of butter versus cheese, but of cheese and butter side by side.

The deputation requested the Government that the price of cheese be fixed next season on a grade of 9.1 J to 92 points as some assistance towards cheese suppliers receiving nearer 2d per lb premium more than butter suppliers. The deputation contended that unless something was done to protect small cheese factories they : would go out of existence. '

Mr. Nash said that the Government would do anything it could to enable factbries to rise to a higher grade. [Cheese companies would .get what they ought to have with regard to. the 2d | a lb premium offered, but bonuses were not favoured.