The Taranaki Herald. (DAILY EVENING.) SATURDAY. MAY 11, 1912. THE DAIRY INDUSTRY.

Taranaki Herald, Volume LX, Issue 143788, 11 May 1912, Page 2

The Taranaki Herald. (DAILY EVENING.) SATURDAY. MAY 11, 1912. THE DAIRY INDUSTRY.

“The public pays dearly for the dairy .industry.” This, needless to state, is not the opinion of anyone engaged, either directly or indirectly, in the industry. It is the dictum of the Mercantile Gazette, published in Wellington. Our contemporary devotes its lending' article in its latest issue to an effort to show that the consuming public are being exploited by the butter merchants and the dairy farmers. It quotes figures to show that the price of butter in London has fallen from 132 s in February last to 109 s at tbe end of April; a fall of 23s per owt. in two months, and proceeds to attribute the fall to the coal strike and the open spring in Europe. The strike began on March 1 and there was an immediate decline of three shillings in the price of butter. There has been a steady decline ever since. In the middle of April it was cabled that about 100,000 boxes of colonial butter were in cold store in Loudon, and the accumulation has increased ever since. In New Zealand the stocks of butter held in cool store at the end of April amounted to 54,832 boxes, which is largely in excess of the quantity held on the same date in recent years. Then the Gazette proceeds to state its grievance, that despite all this the retail price of butter in Wellington is Is 3d per lb., while last year, when there was unquestionably a shortage, it was only Is 2d. There has been no shortage this year, it says, but the prices that have ruled in London have been seized upon for maintaining a high level here, and now that London prices have declined there should be a very substantial reduction in tbe retail prices in New Zealand. It does not follow, the Gazette thinks, that there will be any great reduction, for the reason that the merchants were obsessed with the conviction that butter would be very dear in the Do- ( minion this winter, and entered | into contracts for supplies on the 1 basis of the high values ruling in February and March. If that is the case —and it may be for all we know—why blame the industry ? If an effort is made to force the public to pay for the merchants mistakes that is surely a matter between the public and the mer-

cliants. The dairy industry is out to do the best it can for itself. It is not a philanthropic undertakingl, therefore the producers will hold tho merchants to their bargains, as would the producers in any other industry. Instead of the public paying dearly for the dairy industry, the latter is really the most valuable the Dominion possesses, employing the greatest amount of labour. Whatever small subsidy the State grants it is money very well spent indeed. And after all the Gazette’s remedy is a very simple one. If it regards Is 3d per lb. as too much to pay for butter, it should butter its bread on one side only until the dealers come to their senses and sell butter at a more reasonable price, or use dripping instead and so leave the butter on the dealers’ hands. We don’t think tfis producers would complain, for it is all in the game.