BUTTER-FAT AND BOARD OF TRADE.

Hawera & Normanby Star, Volume LXXII, Issue LXXII, 25 October 1916, Page 4

BUTTER-FAT AND BOARD OF TRADE.

_. . To tb» Editor. Sir, —It is unnecessary for me, a farmer, to say w^t what interest I have perused correspondence upon this subject, nor is it necessary for me to try to-;point out the injustice, since the matter has been so well championed by Mir S. Turner, and also the executive of the Farmers' Union, but I merely desire to draw your readers' attention to the amount averaged by. each individual farm worker for the past year for one^ of our cheese factories. The balance- sheet has been published, and I can refer you to it should you doubt the result. The company in question receives the milk from off... (approximately) twenty square miles of land,! cr 12,800 acres; from this can be deducted about' 2000 as not being under dairying. However, let us say 10,000* acres, worth £30 per acre—£3oo,ooo\. About 3500 cows are milked at £10 per cow —£35,000. Horses and farm implements would invoive (say) £10,000, or a total capital of £345,000. ; At 5 per cent interest this would be £17,250. Now, the company for the year received £52,000 for produce, the cost of manufacture and other expenses totalled £10,000 leaving £42,000 for the dairy farmer, plus interest on capital. I have reckoned up and find that, taken altogether, about 200 people from this source receive their wages. Let us deduct the £17,250 from the total (for I am sure no members of the so-called Board of Trade would lend at less per cent). This leaves, for the producer, £24,750, or £124 each person for his year's work, being gross total. Of any by-products from the farm I am sure the receipts would but pay for general wear and tear, as the dairy farmer works seven days a week for long hours. From this the Board of Trade members will see that the bloated, opulent section of the community from whom they would curtail a few pounds receive in actual fact about seven shillings per day for an average day of ten hou,rs the year through. I may further state that'last year the annual earnings per worker was £80. These figures are from a cheese factory, so no doubt those from a butter factory would be much less.