BUTTER AND CHEESE PRICES

Greymouth Evening Star, 16 April 1937, Page 11

BUTTER AND CHEESE PRICES

PROPOSED AMENDMENT. [PER‘PRESS ASSOCIATION.] WELLINGTON, April 15. The committee set up to advise the Government on guaranteed prices for butter and cheese for next year will meet in Wellington on Monday. The Acting-Minister for Marketing, the Hon. W. Lee Martin, said to-day that sufficient data were not yet available to enable a recommendation to be made in regard to butter and cheese prices, but it was possible at this stage to consider the adequacy or otherwise of premiums at present awarded cheese as compared with butter. It was recognised that the calculations had not worked out quite as anticipated, and some revision of the figure would be necessary.

“We have to the position that the present price will not allow some cheese factories to pay suppliers the premium of lid per lb of butter-fat over that paid out-by butter factories, which it was intended they should be able to do,” the Minister added. The price differentiation between butter and cheese would be announced soon.

MR. HAMILTON'S COMMENT

ASHBURTON, April 15

“I am inclined to think that the dairy farmers of the North Island are not satisfied with the present method, especially as costs are rising and labour is a problem,’’ said the Hon. A. Hamilton, Leader of the Opposition, at Ashburton this evening, when asked for his opinion whether the dairy farmers of the North Island were satisfied with the guaranteed price for dairy produce. Mr. Hamilton said that the Government’s method of putting the guaranteed price into force was different from what the farmers thought it would be. The system was nothing more than a commandeer at a fixed price. He thought that the dairy farmers would have been guaranteed a minimum price, and that they would have received the benefit of anything over the minimum if necessary. It was strange that meat and wool, which were not commandeered were bringing better prices than the controlled produce. Mr. Hamilton said he thought that the method of selling New Zealand ddiry produce was not altogether acceptable to the British people.