THE DAIRY INDUSTRY.

Evening Star, Issue 20486, 17 May 1930, Page 12

THE DAIRY INDUSTRY.

■' TO HIE EDITOF Sir, —In your issue of Ist inst. the writer of notes under the caption ox • ‘ The Labour Movement ’ quotes the number employed in the dairy industry in ■1923.. as 2,(64, and the wages paid £571,524. In the latest Official Year .Book available to me the Government . Statistician gives the figures lor the season 1926-27 as 3,996 employed, and £913,242 wages paid. In your issue ot 10th inst. a Wellington telegram from your own correspondent quotes the Government Statistician’s figures for the 1928-29 season as 4,238 employed, and £945,005 wages paid. ■ Hero we bave official figures lor the 1926-27 and 1928-29 seasons. It would appear to be highly improbable that the-figures‘for the 1927-28 season could slip back to the extent stated bv your contributor. Perhaps “J.S.S.’ will ■' enlighten dairy farmers in the matter. ,Your contributor also states that the wages cost per ton to manufacture cheese and butter had decreased from £4 15s in 1918 to £3 7s 7d in 1928. 1 would like to quote some figures relating to a factory that commenced operations with an output of 120 tons or cheese, and has made steady progress to an output of about 400 tons ot cheese in the 1928-29 season. Ims factory has 1 employed the full number of: men, and paid the wages prescribed by the several awards made by the Arbitration Court. In 1914 the w: gas cost was £2 2s 9d per ton of cheese produced. In the five years 19-4-1929 the average wages cost was £o os od per ton of cheese —an increase ot 148 per cent, over 1914 costs. To take the matter adittlo further, it will no doubt interest your readers to know that in 1914 the average selling value of cheese was £55 13s per ton, while the average for the five-year period ended 192 J was £79 8s 7d—an increase of 50 per cent, over 1914. These figures should make the dairy farmer sit up and take notice. — l am, etc., l akmek. i.Mosgiel, May 14