BUTTER EQUALISATION FUND.

Taranaki Daily News, 5 September 1919, Page 8

BUTTER EQUALISATION FUND.

PROSPECT OF PAYMENT. Tho vexed question of the payment of the equalisation fund, i.e., the difference between the local price of butter, as fixed by the. Government, and the export price, was fully explained by Mr. J. H. Smith, chairman of directors, at the annual meeting of the Waitara Dairy Company yesterday. He explained that the 1910-17 output of butter was sold to the Imperial Government at 157s per ewt. and 50 per cent, of profit.. Local sales were fixed at Is 5d per lb at factory door. The 157s per cwt. was not quite Is 5d per lb, so that the exporter, after bearing the cost of putting the butter on board ocean stunners, was %d worse off than local seller*. Mr. Massey, when appealed to as to what profits there were likely to be, said he thought there would be but little, if any, and the Food Controller also said that no profits were to be expected, as they were working towards having none, but to come out almost square. The position in New Zealand was then very unsatisfactory, as quite a lot of people who were not in the habit of selling locally then sold as much as they could that way, and so reaped the advantage of the %d per lb. Something should undoubtedly have been done to put matters on a more satisfactory basis. Local sellers were appealed to to pool the %d and the exporters would also pool anything they received, the pool then to be shared equally. Local settlers would not agree, but when it was found, some lime after, that the Imperial Government was offering exporters 17s per cwt. as their share of the profits, local sellers then wanted to share in it, although not agreeable in the first place to pool their %d and chance exporters having anything,to go with it. Waitara Road Factory shipped as usual and chanced getting anything if there was anything, and if. there was nothing, there was nothing. When this 17s was actually available for distribution, the Department of Imperial Supplies in Wellington was prevailed upon by the Government, at the instance of the Butter Committee, to hold on to it in the meantime. A telegram was then sent out by the Butter Committee to all the factories in New Zealand interested, asking their consent to the equalising of this money; that was, to pool the %A and the 17s per cwt. and share equally, but Waitara, under the circumstances objected to take anything but the 17s per cwt., as agreed, in the meantime a payment on account had been made equal to that made to others who had agreed to the proposal. With regard to the season just passed, and also .the present season, there shoitld be very little trouble, as everybody agreed to it at the start, not to the cause of it, that was the fixing of the local price at below export value, but, seeing that tho position had been forced upon them by the Government, it had been agreed to equalise the burden. There was a prospect of getting the wrong righted, as he had been asked by the chairman of the Butter Committee (Mr. Morton) to make one of a deputation which Mr.