BUTTER AND MILK PRICES

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXXIII, Issue 22319, 17 January 1936, Page 12

BUTTER AND MILK PRICES

Sir, —A great number of your readers Tv-ill doubtless agree with your correspondent " Milkfoods," in his inference that the local prices for dairy produce are at present above their proper economic level, basing their reasoning on ihe certain knowledge that supply is super-abundant and, on the other hand, available means to purchase by no means plentiful. The logic of the movements of butter prices lately is difficult to follow. Apparently, while the wholesale market in London has been fluctuating considerably, the fact remains that the retail price there is reduced by a penny per pound. Meantime our local price is increased, for the second time, by one penny. Thus it is that, at time of writing, parity with London is non-existent, either wholesale or retail. With a cost of living out of its true relationship to the wage level, the task of rehabilitation becomes more complicated, and the further it is forced out of gear the more complicated becomes the problem of employment, because rising wages, as a natural sequence, carry rising prices ■with them. E.S.C.