BUTTER AND CHEESE

Manawatu Herald, Volume XL, Issue 1881, 24 September 1918, Page 3

BUTTER AND CHEESE

IMPERIAL PURCHASE SANCTIONED.

The Imperial Cabinet for the purchase of the Australian and New Zealand exportable surplus of butter and cheese has sanctioned the purchase of same. The values placed upon Now Zealand dairy produce for sale to the Imperial Government are for butter 196 s per cwt., and for cheese lOijd per lb, both free on board, New Zealand ports. The price paid for last season’s produce was 157 s for butter, with participation in profits made by the Imperial Government, and lOd per pound for cheese. The price of the butter for this season’s make is offered on the understanding that there shall be no participation in profits. The increase in the price asked for cheese is in order that it may be placed upon a parity with the price at which the Imperial Government purchased Canadian cheese, viz., llfd per pound, f.o.b. Montreal. The Imperial Government, up to 31st August last, had purchased .through the New Zealand Imperial Supplies Department cheese to the value of over £9,000,000. The offer of the New Zealand butter-maker of his exportable surplus at 19fis per cwt., as compared with 157 s per cwt., the price at which last season’s make was purchased, has been dictated by the fact that the Imperial Government sold this butter again at 252 s per cwt., or 2s 3d per pound wholesale and 2s fid per pound retail. The margin between 252 s and 157 s is 955; but, allowing for freight and all other charges, liberally estimated at 50s per cwt., there remained a profit of 45s (the Imperial Government figure is 445), which it was proposed should be shared equally with the producer, so then there would be 22s fid. This .would bring the 157 s per cwt. already referred to up to 179 s fid. But the profits that are to be divided are believed to be from 17s to 19s per cwt., say 2d per pound extra as an approximate amount. On the quantity of butter sold there should be an extra return of £375,000, in round figures, if 2d per pound be accepted as the half profits available for distribution among producers. But from the above sum a deduction will have to be made under the equalisation scheme by which exporters of butter and those concerns which supplied the local markets were put upon (he same fooling as to returns. The prices for butter and cheese which (he Imperial Government is prepared to pay for the 1918-1919 exports are not yet disclosed, nor had official advice on this point been announced here up to the time of writing.