THE PRICE OF BUTTER

Manawatu Herald, Volume XLII, Issue 2180, 23 September 1920, Page 3

THE PRICE OF BUTTER

INVESTIGATIONS CONTINUED. Wellington, Sept. 21. The Butler Prices Investigation Committee set up by the House of Representatives met again this morning, when the first witness was Miss Coad, representing the New Zealand National Council of Women, who contended that the people of the Dominion should not be penalised in the, price of products owing to the high values of hind, which were more or less artificial. She advocated a controlled price of butter and an export tax, and also contended (hat the middleman should be eliminated as in Wellington. She said that, experience showed that butter sold by direct supplies stores was cheaper than by ordinary retailers. C. B. Norwood, who is in charge of the Wellington city milk supplies, said that the City Council had no voice in the price iI paid for milk, it being governed by the price fixed by the Board of Trade with the farmers. The result of the Council’s operations had been lo somewhat reduce the cost to the consumer. Between the years 1915-10 and 1920-21 the wholesale price of milk increased by 78.83 per cent., while the retail price only increased 08.42 per cent. The average price charged the consumers in the summer and winter was 8d per ipmrt. Improvements at the milk station and in the method of distribution would still further reduce the cost to the consumer as soon as they could be effected. No individual supplier could serve the people of the city as well or as cheaply as the Council was now doing. Witness, continuing, said that any action taken by (he committee regulating the price of butter must greatly affect the city’s milk supply. The danger of 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 tiresent abnormal butter situation he favoured an export tax, though he would only interfere with the commereial system with great reluctance. J. B. McEwan gave evidence as to the increased costs in connection with the distribution of butter. He said that the disributors were only asking in New Zealand the same profit as was now allowed in Syd s nev under Government control.