THE GUARANTEED PRICE

Te Awamutu Courier, Volume 54, Issue 3894, 26 April 1937, Page 5

THE GUARANTEED PRICE

AN AUCKLAND SUGGESTION. A prominent Auckland business man who attended the meeting addressed by Mr A. J. Sinclair in Auckland recently on the above subject, has written to Mr Sinclair as follows: “The basis on which the guaranteed price for butter is being calculated is wrong. The waterside workers, carters, seamen and box factory hands—in short, all and everyone who handles the butter after it is made—get paid at the rate of so much an hour for a 40 to 44 hour per week, the late varying from 2s 6d up to as high as 7s 6d per hour for overtime on statutory holidays. “I suggest that the dairy farmer should be paid a flat rate cf 2s 6d per hour from 8 a.m. to 5 p.m.: he should get time and a half for tlie hours lie works before 8 a.m., and after 5 p.m.; double time for Saturdays, Sundays and holidays—in other words, he should get the same return as the waterside workers who load the butter after it has been packed in those clean white boxes. In addition, the farmer should be paid a fixed price per lb butter fat for the use of his farm and implements. If the dairy farmer is to be socialised, it should be done fairly. If it is worth anything up to 7s 6d an hour to load butter into coastal and overseas ships, it is worth at least the same money per hour to milk cows, and efficiently run a farm. Why not put this point of view up to the Government?”