MILK AND BUTTER

Southland Times, Issue 18934, 22 September 1920, Page 4

MILK AND BUTTER

PARLIAMENTARY INVESTIGATION OF PRICES. FURTHER EVIDENCE TAKEN. (Per United Press Association.) WELLINGTON, September 21. The Butter Prices Investigation Committee set up by the House of Representatives met again this morning. The first witness was Miss Coad, representing the New Zealand National Council of Women, who contended that the people of the Dominion should not be penalised in the price of products owing to the high values of land, which were more or loss artificiaL She advocated a controlled price for butted and an export tax. She also contended that the middleman should be eliminated, a* in Wellington experience showed that butter sold by the direct supply stores was cheaper than that sold by ordinary retailers. C. B. Norwood, in charge of the Wellington City Milk Supply, said (hat the City Council had no voice in the price it paid for milk, it being governed by the price fixed by the Board of Trade with the farmers. The result of the Council’s operations had been somewhat to reduce the cost to the consumer. Between the years 1915-10 and 1920-21, the wholesale price of milk had increased by 75.83 per cent, while the retail rice was only increased by 68,42 per cent. The average price charged to consumers in summer and winter was Sd a quart and improvements at the milk station in the method of distribution would still further reduce the cost to the consumer as soon as they could be effected. No individual supplier could serve the people of the city as well or as cheaply as the. Council was now doing. Any action taken by the committee in regulating the price of butter must greatly affect the city’s milking supply. The danger of attacking butter was that all products of the farm must also be attacked, otherwise production would be diverted from butter to something else. As the best means of adjusting the present abnormal butter situation, he favoured an export tax, though he would only interfere with the commercial system with great reluctance. J. B. McEwan gave evidence as to increased costs in connection with the distribution of butter. Distributors were only asking in New Zealand the same prices as were now allowed in Sydney under Government

control. Arthur Latham, a farmer, of Awahuri. farming 70 acres, said he valued his land at £O4 an acre. He produced a balance-sheet showing a loss of £74 14s 9d on the year’s working after allowing himself £2OO as wages. This loss was to some extent augmented by an abnormal loss of stock, but on the other hand incidental expenses might have been less than normal. One of the difficulties the dairy farmer had to face was the expenses be had to pay. Every lime a farm was sold the land agent took 15 per cent, the Government G per cent, and the lawyer 4 per cent. These were the leeches living on the farmers. He could produce to the committee many cases in which farmers were working farms under distressing conditions. Ho thought many farmers were doing better out of their families than out of ihcir cows. He thought his land would fetch £l4O per acre in the open market fo-day. On that basis the cost of production of a pound of butter-fat was 2/10LJ. The committee decided to resume on Thursday.

STATE EXPERIMENT SUGGESTED. PROPOSAL BY MR J. R. HAMILTON. (Special to lire Times.) WELLINGTON, September 21. Mr J. R. Hamilton (Awaruai gave notice to-day to ask the Prime Minister, Whether, seeing the many and various opinions a? to the cost, of production of butter and milk in New Zealand and the repeated clamour of the Labour and Independent members, in this House for a reduction in the cost of these articles, the Government will agree to the purchase of sufficient land and cows to supply one of the principal towns with milk and butter at cost price, the experiment to be based on 5 per cent, and 1 per cent, sinking fund on the capital required and cost of labour, and the farm to he run and managed by the Labour Party on union wages and conditions; provided that the farmers accept the result as the eo/l of production in New Zealand and undertake to supply the local markets at the ascertained res till ?