THE PRICE OF BUTTER.

Taihape Daily Times, Volume XII, Issue 3602, 14 October 1920, Page 5

THE PRICE OF BUTTER.

(To the Editor.) Sir. —1 noted in your valuable paper last night that the nvihvaymen are again asking for a rise in wages owing to the increased price of butter. Well Sir, I have Keen waiting for an abler p-.n than mine to explain the position. In the first place a few years back a dairyman could buy a good dairy cow for about £B. Now the same cow costs from £l7 to £3O: ana on top of that the price of all labour has gone up; also cost of seeds, shoeing, machinery, wear and tear, etc. I wonder If the railwayman have ever considered that a dairyman works from I. a.m. until 8 p.m. with no increase of time and a half after 8 hours, and no time at all. for Sundays, in the shape of double pay The year before last owing to the severe winter I lost several of my best I cows and this vear through the frosts I , e - cutting down the feed and having to use my winter feed earlier than usual I also lost heavily; our rates are double and! also all other things in proportion As far, as I can see butter is the last thing to rise in line with other things Vet the railway man with his extra pay would have the poor devil of a dairyman toil on Sunday and weekdays, day and night, at the same old j thing as long as they are all right. | I presume a man’s children are entifcj Isl to be paid as well as the railway ! man, or how is the dairyman to pay the interest on the money he has to borrow and the losses of cows which have to be replaced, unless he gets the money through the rise in butter asked for, in accordance with other commodities. Otherwise lie nftist go to the -wall. The railwayman gets his pay year in and year out;- the dairyman gets what he makes according to the season, losses, etc., and he/ is more often on the wrong side than the right. —Thanking you in anticipatxSft, I unvote:. „ .DAIRYMAN.