BUTTER EQUALISATION FUND.

Taranaki Daily News, 27 July 1918, Page 5

B UTTER EQUALISATION FUND.

THE DIFFICULTY IN THE WAY. (From Our Own Correspondent.) Wellington, July 24. At the conference held on Tuesday between the Hon. D. H. Guthrie, the Minister in Charge of Imperial Supplies, the Hon. W. D.. S. Macdonald, the president of the Board of Trade, and the representatives of the Dominion Butter Committee, the question of the suppliers of butter to the local market sharing in the profits made by the Imperial Government on the requisitioned butter sold in Britain was discussed at considerable length without any definite decision being reached.. The difficulty in the way is that m the agreement made between the New Zealand Government and the producers it was provided that only those shipping butter to London should participate in the profit, which at that time was expected to be ivery small, if any at all. The factories supplying the local market were to receive Is 5d per pound at the factory door, while those shipping their output were to receive 157s a hundredweight

f .0.b., equal to about Is 4 13-10 d a pound. In these circumstances there was no difficulty in inducing a sufficient number of factories to supply the local market, and the factories arranged the matter between themselves.

Now, however, the Imperial authorities are selling a considerable quantity of the shipped butter, and realising a substantial profit, of which 50 per cent., in terms of the agreement, is to be distributed among the shipping factories. The claim of the factories supplying the local market is that in the altered circumstances they should share in this distribution.

It has been suggested, as a solution of the difficulty, that the price received at the factory 'door by the shipping and the supplying factories should be equalised by a payment to the former from the profits and that the balance should be distributed in proportion to the amount of butter turned out. A large majority of the shipping factories are prepared to waive their legal rights and accept this arrangement, but two or three are dissenting, and the negotiations now going on are with a view to bringing them to a unanimous agreement.