Price of Milk.

Opunake Times, Volume II, Issue 75, 22 March 1895, Page 2

Price of Milk.

The New. Zealand Herald, in dealing ~ with the probable price of milk for the next season, says:—"3lhe long-con-tinued depression which has prevailed on the London market with regard to butter,'is likely to bring things to a crisis in the colonies. For two years it is said no profit has been made upon the butter exports sent from the, colony, and no interest obtained upon the capital employed in the business. The amount of capital at stake is very considerable, far larger than many would suppose. This year Messrs Reynolds and Co. have paid for milk a little over £BO,OOO, and by the time the season closes it is expected that for milk bought, expenses incurred, losses susteined in maintaining creameries wlere the milk of a sufficient number of cows to make it payable was not provided, &c, by the end of the season quite £40,000 will have been -paid in connection with this business. The loss sustained this season already has been uttek that this firm have decided to try to effect fresh arrangements with milk suppliers. A member of the firm is now in the Waikato district trying to efiect some modification in the form of agreement, and a circular has been issued upon the state bf the trade iralraactions up to date. The proposal they make is a slight modification of the arrangement come to at the beginning of the milk season, and though the Victorian price of milk has been reduced to 2d per gallon owing to the low prices obtained for butter in the London marked, Messrs Reynolds and Co. only propose a reduction of a farthing per gallon, to be allowed on the season's transactions from September Ist, to be liquidated from the March and April payments in two equal instalments. Ji this proposal is agreed to, the circular states that the business will go on;; those who do not fall in with arrangement will cease to meet witfy amarkef for their milk. The issue is a serious and important one to all concerned, both tb the milk suppliers, as well as to the butter factories. The local price of dairy made batter has already fallen to an average of 6d per lb, with at best a limited market, and .many farmers have provided a stock cows for the supply of milk for butter-making, pigs, and,other stock for the use of the skimmed milk, Which will be rendered comparatively valueless, so ihat an action of the character stated above throws the whole organisation oat of gear, and puts all to inconvenience. As the least of the evils inevitable, perhaps the reduction of a farthing per gallon in the price of milk until such time as the London market recovers from its present stagnation, is that one. To burst up the whole of the organised milk trade now existing for providing an export of butter beyond the colony, would produce results of a lamentable character, and tend to throw back the trade and enterprise of the colony for a long time. It is always an ungracious thing to counsel the taking of a lower price for any article of agricultural produce, for as a rule those are generally pretty nearly at bed-rock prices, but in the present circumstances it may fairly be concluded that if the farmers of Viotoria, in their dry and uncertain olimate, can make a living profit by selling their milk at 2d per gallon to the butter factories, the New Zealand milk producers, with a grass-producing climate far superior and far more certain- than that of their neighbours, should be able to hold their own, especially when a higher price per gallon is paid."