SUBSIDISING BUTTER EXPORTS.

Otago Witness, Issue 1989, 7 April 1892, Page 18

SUBSIDISING BUTTER EXPORTS.

The discussion between a member of our staff and Mr David Wilson, the Victorian Government dairy expert, gives anything but an edifying view of that industry in Victoria. It is true that figures may show that it is prosperous — more prosperous than with vs — but we require a little more evidence to convince us that it is in a really more satisfactory state tban the industry of schoolboys who keep themselves in pocket money by selling eggs raised in their father's hen house. The advantage of paying no rent is as apparent iv the latter case as that of having it paid for you in the former. The Victorian farmer on the figures possesses advantages unknown to his .New Zealand fellow. A few years ago -one of the Victorian statesmen who ■were idolised in the boom days — these are getting a little out of fashion now — descanting on the value of milch cows to the colony, quoted figures showing the enormous annual value of their yield. "We forget the figures. They were, however, very largo, and were made lip by reckoning the milk at the modest price of 8d per gallon. .Now when our farmers get 4d they consider themselves well off; they usually have to put up with 3£d, not seldom with 3d. Yet undoubtedly the industry of producing milk for the factories is a paying one even at these low prices, and has proved an incalculable boon to New Zealand. Mr Wilson praises the system under which butter is subsidised in the London market at the rate of Id, 2d, or 3d per lb. Need we say that the vendors of butter have at least managed to see in the course of three years that none is sold under the price that gives the highest bounty ? They would have proved very backward in the art of bounty-drawing had they fallen short of this. Mr Wilson guilelessly describes the checks and counter-checks by which the Government is secured from imposture in answer to a question by our reporter, " How on earth do you work that system so as to have a guarantee against fraud ? " It may be that the improvement i 3 natural and not due to any artifice, but the temptation is such as is usually found hard to resist. Mr Wilson expresses the belief that it is the honest intention of our Government to help this industry. We do not doubt it, and we thoroughly approve of the action of the Hon. Mr M'Kenzie in sending an expert over to Victoria to study the system, but in the meantime •we may be pardoned for remaining sceptical as to the advantages of adopting an elaborate system of constant bounties to create and bolster up an industry. Initiatory bounties are a form of Protection somewhat less objectionable, possibly sometimes beneficial, but constant bounties means the paying of salaries to persons to carry on the induatry for the Government. The whole system iv Victoria seems to be a State system by which the Government becomes the real butter merchant and cheese merchant. We confess we would rather see the industry grow more sjowly and depend as hitherto mainly on individual and co-operative sj|brt. The length to which the Government may reasonably go in such matters is c nsiderable. It might establish schools and employ teachers, circulate literature, and encourage interchange of ideas and promote uniformity of process, bub we do not \vish to see it undertake the full for the industry as heretofore. The Victorian farmers are getting into vioious ways. Protection has weighed heavily on them for years, and, unable quite' clearly to sen the true remedy, they are seeking to balance it with more Protection. The system of State dairies, coupled with bounties, becomes under such eireu instances as necessary as the system by which the State raises the price of meat and of grain to protect the farmer, against whom it has already raised the price of all he requires. A reaper and binder costs the Victorian farmer 70 per cent. more than it coats his fellow in New Zealand, and we presume he has other such burdens. Mr Wilson shows that the result of a bounty on export is that "these small lots of farmers' butter have been realising from Id to 2d per lb for the last three years more than they ever did before." In other words, the Victorian taxpayer pays the money by means of which the price of butter is raised for all consumers. This butter is thrown into the English market, and as in the case of sugar bounties the English buyer gets the whole advantage. As the all-round raising of the prioe of one of the necessaries of life means that the tax falls with reference rather to the burdens of the

family than the means, of supporting it, it is really a poll tax. This admirable system is one which our Government will, we hope, have the good sense to avoid, unless some clearer demonstration of its merits is given than that to which we refer. We fear we have dealt somewhat ungraciously with Mr Wilson, but in questions of economy unless an argument will stand a severe test it must be unsound. At the same time we must express our thanks to him for having put so clearly before our readers and the people of the colony his views upon this most important subject. We have no doubt that the colony will before long have occasion to feel grateful for his visit.