BUTTER PRICES.

Star (Christchurch), Issue 20057, 21 September 1920, Page 8

BUTTER PRICES.

CONTROL ADVOCATED. [Per Press Association.' "WELLINGTON, September 21. Tlie Butter Prices Investigation Committee, set up by the House of Reprec°otatives) met again this morning. The first witness was Miss Goad, representing the New Zcoland National Council of Women. She 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 less artificial. She advocated a controlled price of butter and an export tax. She also contended that the middleman should' bo eliminated, as in Wellington experience showed that butter sold by direct supply stores was cheaper than by ordinary retailers. C.B. Norwood, who is in charge or the Wellington city milk supplies, said that ,the City Council had no roico in the price it paid for milk, it being governed by the price fixed by the Board of Trade with the farm--o*?■ result of the council’s operations had been to somewhat reduce the cost to the consumer. Between the years 1915-16 and 1920-21 the wholesale price of milk® increased by 78.83 per cent, while the retail price only increased 68.42-, The average price charged to consumers, summer and winter, was 8d per quart. Improvements at the milk station and the method of distribution would still further reduce the cost to'the consumer ns soon as they could be effected. No individual supplier could serve the people pf the city as well or as cheaply as the council was now doing. . witness continued that any action taken by the committee in regulating the price of butter must greatly affect the city s milk supply. The danger ot attacking butter was that all the 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 Mr J. B. M’Ewan gave evidence as to the increased cost in connection with the distribution of butter. The distributors were only asiung in’ New Zealand the same pree as was now allowed m Sydney under Government control. Mr Arthur Latham, a farmer at Awahuri, farming seventy acres, and valuing his land at £64 an acre, produced a balance-sheet showing that his loss was £74 14s 9d on the year’s working, after allowing himself £2OO as wages. This loss to some extent was augmented by an abnormal loss of stock, but on the other hand the incidental expenses might have been less than normal. One of the difficulties the dairy farmer had to face ivaa the expenses he had to pay every time a farm was sold. The land agent took lo per cent, the Government 6 per cent, and the lawyer 4 per cent. These were leeches living on the farmers. He could produce to tho committee many cases in which farmers were working farms under distressing conditions. He thought that many farmers were doing better out of their families, than out of their cows. He thought that his land- would fetch £l4O an acre in the open market today . _ On that basis, the cost of the production of a pound of butter-fat was 2s 10Jd_ The_ committee decided to resume its investigations on Thursday.