THE LOCAL BUTTER MARKET.

Manawatu Standard, Volume LIII, Issue 63, 10 February 1933, Page 2

THE LOCAL BUTTER MARKET.

(To the Editor.)

Sir, —The. recent price cutting of butter on the local market leads me to place before the townspeople as consumers of this commodity an aspect of the situation not hitherto pointed out to them. Buyers of farming lands adjacent to towns and cities by reason of that proximity pay a greater price for that land than they would for equally productive land more remote. Their valuation higher, their taxes both local and national, are considerably greater. As an offset to their increase in costs they look to local markets for a recompense, not so much in higher prices as in smaller marketing costs. Following tire argument further, farms in close proximity to centres of population are the suppliers of whole milk with its attendant higher remuneration. There is in the air at the present time a proposal re local sales in New Zealand, and the promoters in outlining it have stated their case —it benefits all dairy farmers. I have already stated a case for the local farmers. Can the consumers and retailers of Palmerston North operating under the present “rafferty” rules state any case at all? Put the business on a fair basis and perhaps your side of it will receive a little more consideration and perhaps a measure of support. Local farmers caused, developed, and keep your city. Surely there is no satisfaction to the retailers to sell an article below cost to a stranger, and see their old customers buying cut lines over the street. • What is there in buying “foreign” butter whose producers never spent a cent, in your city? A while since it was bread; at present it is the price of butter that is receiving unwelcome attention. May I suggest that it is high time some other commodity had a turn. —I am, etc., LANCASTRIAN.