N.Z. DAIRY ASSOCIATION.

King Country Chronicle, Volume VI, Issue 487, 31 July 1912, Page 3

N.Z. DAIRY ASSOCIATION.

ANNUAL REPORT,

The annual balance has just been completed, and I have pleasu*e in congratulating the shareholders on a record year's business. Herein you will find the usual advance statement of the result of the season's work, to enable suppliers to adjust their shareholding beforp the distribution of profits. The season has been a good one. Prices have ruled high, and the year stands out as high water mark for New Zealand dairymen. The prospect for the future is a d : stinctly encouraging one. Old markets offer good inducement, and new ones, which proircse well, are having t'.ie attention of the management. During the year just closed the association made 9,220,0791bs of butter, being an increase of 1,509,6091bs on the previous year's moke. This inlicates a rate of progress which encourages our friends and supporters, astonishes our enemies, and utterly dis credits the hostile declamations of our traducers. The Dairy Association stands more solidly united to-day than ever before, and the spirit of co-opera-tion which animates the membership is a happy harbinger of future consolidation and expansion. There are assurances that next year's increase will be augmented by many supplies which have during the past season been sent elsewhere, to the financial disadvantage of the suppliers. The complete payments for the past season are higher than ever before. Generally they exceed the payments of other butter manufacturing companies, and at our large creameries, where the quantities handled have compared with the quantities handled by the creameries of other companies, our prices have not, as yet, beer equalled, nor are they likey to be. Al our prices, however, wuuld havt been considerably higher but for i departure at the beginning of the present season from the company's usual policy of shipping on consign ment. The prices which were being offered for butter when the seasor opened were so unprecedentedly higl that your directors and management, as representing the shareholders' in terests, did not feel at liberty to en tirely disregard them; and, therefore entered into a contract for the dis posal of nearly half the butter whicl was expected to be available for px Dort. But for this unfortunate cun tract, which wa now have cause to re gret, our payments for the past sea son would have been much larger

The advance price paid on account of all butterfat, from September to May inclusive, was lOd per lb, in addition to which a portion of the quantity bonus was also paid monthly. The

balances due on account of quantity bunua are now being paid. At our largest creameries the total quantity

bonus payments are at the rate of 11

per lb upon all the butter fat received there at for the period September to end of May inclusive. Smaller creameries will, as usual, receive proportionate quantity bonus as per condi-

tions of supply. The uniform advance price paid for butterfat during July and the first half of August was Is Id per lb, and for the second half of August Is per lb. In addition to the foregoing payments, the result of the year's work will permit of a further payment of l§d per lb upon the butterfat supplied during the year. This will be paid to shareholder suppliers who, on the 7th day of August next, hold one share for each 2401bs of

butterfat, or portion thereof, which they have supplied. Interest at the rate of 6 per cent, on the paid-up value of the shares on the 30th June has been provided upon shares which were allotted prior to the 31st March preceding. On qualified shares of the first issue this dividend will nearly equal $d per lb on a basis of 2401bs per share. The total of all payments, on a butterfat basis, from September to May inclusive, to shareholders at our largest creameries, will be one shilling and three farthings per ]b for butterfat, For the months of July ami the first tialf of August the similar payments will be equal to one shilling and twopence halfpenny per lb, and for the second half of August one shilling and one penny halfpenny per lb. These payments constitute a record, representing as they do the largest net price paid for butterfat in the Auckland province, skim milk being returned free to suppliers. The smaller creameries will receive pproportionately ! less, according to the amount of their quantity bonus. The average payment to shareholders for July and August, everything included, on a butterfat basis, is 13.844 d per lb, and from September to May inclusive, 12.31 d per lb. These figures represent actual payments for all the butterfat in the original milk, no deductions being made or provided for to cover wasto or losses due to separation or cost of carriage of cream, or of its subsequent manufacture into butter. —H. E. Pacey, General Manager.