CHICAGO MILK TRADE

Poverty Bay Herald, Volume LX, Issue 18181, 31 August 1933, Page 2

CHICAGO MILK TRADE

GOVERNMENT PRICES SELLING AND BUYING CHICAGO, August 17. Great importance is attached to the Chicago milk agreement and the court fight over its constitutionality. America for the first time freezes prices and guarantees profits, and later developments may mean the fixing of prices of milk and similar commodities on a national basis. Chicago dealers to-day were compelled to buy milk at a fixed price and sell at a. fixed price. Under this arrangement most of the independent, cut-price dealers in the city are expected to disappear. This is a sample of what can be done under the licensing provisions of the Agricultural Adjustment Act and the National Recovery Act. About 75 per cent, of Chicago's milk is handled by the five Large companies in the Chicago Milk Dealers’ Association, sometimes called the “Milk Trust.” That group buys from the Pure Milk Association Co-operative, controlling the output of 18,000 farmers. The independent dealers have bought from 2000 other farmers and, secretly, from some of the cooperative members. It is stated that they paid the farmers as much as, or more than, the trust did 1 , although they sold at 6£ cents, as against nine cents. All was fairly well until 1932, when the fanners, losing their markets for other products, began to pour in additional milk. Consumers, hard up, welcomed the cut prices. The organised industry had also to under-cut, so the co-operative farmers received less. i