DAIRY INDUSTRY

Timaru Herald, Volume CXXXVII, Issue 19751, 19 March 1934, Page 12

DAIRY INDUSTRY

ALTERNATIVE TO BONUS STATE PURCHASE OF SURPLUS Bv Telegraph—Press Association HAWERA. March 17. In the course of an Interview to-day, Mr H, G. Dickie, M.P., made a suggestion, as an alternative tj the suggested bonus on butter-fat, that the industry should withhold some 20,000 tons of produce from the London market, the industry to be reimbursed at ths current London parity by the Government, and the surplus produce introduced to countries in which it is not at present sold, with the object of opening up new markets. “Mr Coates, in his pamphl A Blitter Quota or a Free Market,’ issued last year, stated that if a 6 per cent, reduction of export increased London price from 70/- to 84/- a cwt., a smaller volume of produce would realise £230,000 more, and the Dominion would have 2° 000 tons of produce on hand ’ ich had cost it nothing,” said Mr Dickie. Farmers of New Zealand are not prepared to take this gamble, and I suggest that the Government purchase this surplus at 70/- and use it to explc e new markets. If Australia v/ould do the same the farmer might obtain increased price in London, while the Government might not lose v y much over marketing the 20,000 tons elsewhere. The total cost to the Government of 20,000 tons at 70/- per cwt. would be £1,400,000, a good share of which would be recovered, while a straight out subsidy, or guaranteed price of lOd to the farmer at current prices, would cost the taxpayers £3,000,000,” concluded Mr Diikie.

BOARD IN POSITION TO MAKE ADVANCES.

By Telegraph—Pi-ess Association AUCKLAND. March 17. Mr W. Grounds, chairman of the New Zealand Dairy Control Board stated to-day that the Dairy Board was in a position to make an immediate advance to the farmers if the Government invested it with power as the basis of the proposed State subsidy. There was no denying the desperate position of the average dairy farmer, particularly the small men. The present rate of 8d for butterfat did not represent even a bare subsistence.