PRESENT PRICE OF MILK.

Evening Star, Issue 3443, 5 March 1874, Page 3

PRESENT PRICE OF MILK.

To the Editor . I think you will readily agree with me when' I say that the importance of milk as an article of domestic consumption cannot well be overestimated. Its chemical properties combine the elements of animal and vegetable food, which render it particularly wholesome and nutritious. To the working man with a young family, it may be, it' is not qnly valuable, but forms an indispensable article of daily food ; yet the price of this commodity, as supplied to our tables, is not only enormously high, but unduly imposed. 1 am not talking at random • I know too well that consumers—especially the wo king class portionendorse nly views'to a E man. . Have the dairymen, whose notice appeared' in your columns,; givieff any reason for the enormous and unlooked-fur increase of something like 25 per cent. ? The standard price hitherto was just As high as a working man 1 could well afford, taking high rents and price of provisions into consideration ; and surely there ought to be some valid reason to justify this sudden increase,' and clear ; tbe matter from the ugly suspicion of greed and:' avarice that attaches’tp'it. Are tbe dairy-, men themselves even' unanimous' ini the matter? Certainly not’for-one of them,, on being remonstrated’with the other day,! expressed!:himself to the hflfect that hje l ■ thought 5d a quart exorbitant; 4d he cob-* ■sidered high enough .to pay the seller hand sotnely : that at least was his own experience; but in order to retain the respect and • goodwill of his fellows, he must needs acquiesce. If the scarcity of milk even could .be put forward as a plea, there might be some cause for the increase ; but so far from ibis being! the case, 1 am aware that in many cases the milk carriers are obliged to take home - with them quantities unsaleable. We'cam easily .that .the fear , of competition from remote parts..,of the country, when the rail way is ono.e open through, influence and stir the'sellers in and around t.uuedin to extort the last farthing while they can*. ;Doe ; < this • not sufficiently indicate a natural tendency to greed, and a printing after wealth, rather ' mt * s P lrit honorable and just trading ? Working men, be up and doing. A wide and general withdrawal of custom, until this unjust and miserable imposition is amended, is apparently the. only remedy, but it must necessarily prove effectual. amj sc.,’," Dunedin, March 5. F.M.