A WONDERFUL INDUSTRY.

Kaipara and Waitemata Echo, 18 November 1920, Page 4

A WONDERFUL INDUSTRY.

:—« (From the Mercantile Gazette.) Dairying in New Zealand is the nost wonderful industry in the world, it all events thai must be the conjlusion of all who have followed the proceedings before the Parliamentary Prices Inquiry Butter Committee. It is wonderful because it does not pay, and yet the prices of dairying land have advanced so that £150 per acre is now a not uncommon price, and clairyicg cattle have also risen iv value. It is this unprofitable industry that discharged soldiers are being encouraged to embark in with the help of the State, and this is a scandal of the first magnitude. The people should insist upon the Government giving the returned soldier a better start than to encoiirage him to take up the unprofitable industry of dairying. Does anyone believe that the dairying industry is really uuprofitable ? Its unprofitable character has been voiced again and again for years past, and it is so unprofitable that annually thousands of acres have been turned over to dairying, and the industry has grown in a mar*> vellous way. We are asked to believe that this growth, and this expansion is the result of its unprofitable character. A. truly wonderful indiu-tiy: but who believes that it does not pay ? Let us see how its un profitable character is established. Tho accountant of_ the Agricultural Department statod that the Department had gathered information from typical producers in alt the dairying districts in Now Zealand, and he had taken the expenditure in twenty-four cases, and had deducted the price of all by-products, to securo the actual price of production. The average of the twenty-four cases showed that the cost of producing butter wras 2s od per lb, and the gross incuine per lb was 2s 2|d, Interest was taken at 6 per cent and land that had been bought for £10 was valued f<>r the purposes of the calculation as £35 per acre and more. If the accountant had taken the value of the land at £100 per acre he could have shown a greater average loss, and at £150 per acre he could havo written "blank ruin" as tho average reau't. If he had taken the value of tho land at a reasonable figure, he could have shown a very handsome profit. If there is so heavy a loss on an average value of £35 per acre aud more, what would be the loss at the fancy prices of to day. But we are told that the increased price of land was only tho farmer's deferred reward for his labour expressed in improvements: if this is so, what is to be the reward of the unfortunate man who is paying £150 aiid £200 per acre for dairying land ? The whole thing is so Gilbertiiin that we wonder that serious men can givo serious considerations to it. We have these facts established beyond question : — Dairying- land has advanced in price enormously ; dairy cattle have also advanced in value, and there are inoie people ready to enter this unprofitable industry to-day than has ever been the case, aud the Government is helping returned soldiers to acquire dairying land as one of the best methods of giving them a atari. How do those who say that the industry is unprofitable account for all this V The matter can be left at that.