DAIRYING MATTERS.

Taranaki Daily News, 16 April 1919, Page 5

DAIRYING MATTERS.

BROUGHT BEFORE INDUSTRIES COMMITTEE. At Monday's sitting of the Industries Committee Mr. A. Morton, president of the Natioual Dairy Association, dealt with the disabilities under which a portion of the industry worked by reason of the impost on butter exported, to equalise the price received by thoee whose butter was required lor the local market. He said that if the fixed price of butter for the local market was for the purpose of easing tho burden on the poorer section of the community they would not complain to the same extent, but those who did not need it participated in a benefit which a few producers were compelled to concede. And those butter producers were amongst the smallest and hardest worked section of the industry, and some of them only made a bare living and were compelled to provide cheap butter for other people. Mr. Morton detailed the arrangements made with the Government for the dispb3al of the butter output, and said the equalisation fund was in fact a continuation of the butter-fat levy, about which so much had been heard. There was grave dissatisfaction among the butter producers of tho Dominion. If the fund was necessary the cost should, be borne by the Consolidated Revenue Fund. He instanced the subsidy granted by Cabinet to millers who were unable to lo produce flour at a payable price from wheat for which they had to pay the Government fixed price, and said if that. was a proper thing in one industry it should also be applied to the other. In reply to Mr. Vcitch, Mr. Morton said that if the fund was levied on cheese producers as well it might have the effect of reducing the liability to change from butter to cheese production, but that would not make the levy any fairer.

In answer to Mr. Sidey, it was stated that there wbb about 30,000 tons of butter proudced every year, of which 20,000 were exported. It therefore followed that there were 21bs of export butter to bear the levy on every pound of butter required for the local market. With the equalisation fund the price came to about Is Cd per lb, which was not really a payable price, if all the labor of the farmer and his family was reckoned in the coßt of production. A payable figure would be about Is 7Jd. Dr. Newman raised the question of the supply of butter for town uses, and the complaints as to rise in prices crcli season, and suggested that something might be done in the matter of storage of the quantity required to meet demands, and merely the cost of storage! passed on to the consumer. Mr. Morton replied that the investigation of the Board of Trade had revealed nothing in the nature of exploitation on the part of producers. He admitted the Is 8d charged by-retailers was too much. The trouble was that the factories did not care to sell direct to the grocer and take the risk of bad debts. They preferred to sell to a broker, who naturally wanted something for the rißk he took and for his handling. Mr. Morton, as chairman of the Taranaki Farmers' Producers Company, also referred to the , trouble of getting sufficient railway trucks when loading produce from their stores to the ships at the breakwater. The factories also experienced difficulties in getting trucks to bring their produce to the stores. The condition of the trucks frequeatly left much to be desired.

DRIED MILK INDUSTRY. Mr. Morton also urged that in view of the possibility of the establishment of factories for the manufacture of dried milk, sugar of milk or condensed milk, in which large supplies of fuel were used, an endeavor should be made to •have the Stratford-Main Trunk railway carried at least another 20 miles so as to tap the large area of coal deposits in the Tangarakau district. If that supply | was made available it would do away with the necessity for the present seaborne supplies and also the supplies that come by the round-abount route from the Waikato.

In reply to a question by Dr> Newman as to the manufacture of casein, Mr. Morton said that another company had the rights of the process in the Dominion, and though it was made by means of lactic acid, which was really cow's milk, the company proposed to be formed here had been informed by letter from the company holding the rights that they could manufacture if they paid a royalty of £2 10s per ton and marketed their goods to that company, otherwise the royalty would be £5. If they could make casein without having to pay a royalty and obtain the £S per ton for it, they would be able to give suppliers 4y s d per lb for butter-fat in addition to what they at present received. He also advocated the establishment of a Government bureau of information in connection with the primary industries of the Dominion, and also an up-to-date chemical laboratory.

The chairman stated that the committee had been led to believe at Wanganui that any company could manufacture casein without payment of a royalty. Fe asked Mr. Morton to submit the letter referred to to the committee, and he undertook to do so. ,