WELLINGTON TOPICS.

Taranaki Daily News, 30 July 1918, Page 6

WELLINGTON TOPICS.

CITY MILK SUPPLY So far the ratepayers liave shown no disposition to take the City Councils proposed solution of the milk supply very seriously. The majority of them regard tho Milk Committee's scheme rather with incredulity than With disapproval. The.friends of municipal trading arc delighted by tlie Council's conversion to their view, but witli the Mayor standing aloof from the scheme and tlie President- of the Greater Wellington Electors' Association condemning it as a hazardous experiment, even they are not very hopeful of seeing it in operation during the next, decade. Among frivolous people the council's muddling of the milk supply over a long j series of years has becolne a standing! jest, and its efforts towards reform will | have to take some more tangible shape than a "scheme" before those who have found 110 humor in the situation will entertain any very sanguine hopej of an improvement. BUTTER PRICES. The conference that has been going on between the Hon. D. H. Guthrie, the Minister in Charge of Imperial Supplies, tlie Hon. W. 1). S. Ma'cDouald, President of the Hoard of Trade, and the Dominion Butter Committee during the past few days has had nothing to do with the retail price of butter. Its business hasbeen merely to equalise the price obtained by the factories for their outputs. Hitherto tlie factories supplying the local market 'have been at some disadvantage compared with those shipping to London, in that they obtained no share of the profits realised by the. Imperial authorities on the sale of butter, not required for their own purposes, for civilian consumption. This in all probability will be remedied, the shipping factories having taken a very generous view of the position, but the Ministers are averse to any advance ia the local price, and it is unlikely anything of -fie kind will be permitted. I