WELLINGTON NOTES.

Taranaki Daily News, Volume LVII, Issue 270, 24 April 1915, Page 3

WELLINGTON NOTES.

THE PRICE OF BUTTER. (From Our Own Correspondent.) Weiiiuuton, Yesterday. The price of butter is going-up again, and the people who ought to know ar& saying that it will not stop on the -right L side of Is i)d a pound. New Zealand, it I seems, is sulTcring because the Dominion factories are sending large quantities of butler tif> Australia, where export has, been prohibited and exporters have contracts to fill. "There is no doubt but that the. present and increasing scarcity of butter is due to artificial means, the inflation of price being directly attributable to the depletion of our own stocks by export of an already scarce connnodity to Australia," says the Evening Post. "Already it is estimated that ten thousand boxes of butter will shortly have gone from New Zealand to Australia, thus robbing the reserve held for domestic, consumption." In ordinary years a shortage of butter provides its own remedy to a certain extent, since the rise in prices causes cheese factories to turn their attention temporarily to tn j production of butter. But there will be no relief from that direction this year. The high prices that are being paid for cheese on the London market are making the manufacture of cheese extraordinarily profitable, and the producers are not attracted even by a prospect of seeing from Is 2d to Is 4d per pound for their butter-fat. The Government is being urged to prohibit or limit the export of butter until the price within New Zealand has been fixed at a reasonable level, not higher than Is 4d or Is 5d a pound.» But enquiries locally indicate that nothing of the sort "is likely to be done in the near future. The strong argument against prohibition of export is that the Dominion ought not to do anything at the present juncture to check the movement .of foodstuffs towards the Motherland. Most people will agree, but the argument might be carried a little further without much apparent injustice to anybody. Why should anybody in New Zealand—dairyman or merchant—take an abnormal profit in time of war, when the Empire's needs are greatest I' aiu! the demands upon its resources are most severe?

A BIG CAMP. Trentham is full again, and there are ( indications that the military authorities are preparing to increase the size of the ' camp very considerably. The first I units of the additional expeditionary

.force will be. going into camp before many weeks have elapsed, and probably as many as seven thousand men will have to' be accommodated at one time within the next few months. Recruits

•are coming forward in largely increased numbers now tliat the -need for additional men is known, and the Defence Department is not anticipating any difficulty in this respect. One of the many interesting features of Trentham is the contrast between the newly-ar-rived recruit and the partially-finished soldier as he appears after a month or six weeks' hard training. It is no reflection upon the new men to say that some of them are exceedingly raw. They are not all as bad as the individual who, arrived at the Wellington wharf on his way to camp and lined up with his fellow recruits, faded away in search of a drink and returned to explain that he i had thought there was "plenty of time"; I or as the comrade who, seeing an apo- | nicotic officer struggling for words to [ meet this case, suggested casually, I "You'd better shoot 1m!" V-it their notions of discipline offer are exceedingly loose, and their notions of what constitutes a hard day's work are conservative. A few weeks later they are real soldiers, with a deep regard for military tradition and a proper contempt for the mere recruit. 'Sew JJca,land will have a real army at the close of this war.