PRICE OF BUTTER.

Taranaki Daily News, 22 January 1920, Page 8

PRICE OF BUTTER.

RESTRICTIONS TO BE REMOVED. ADVANCE IN NEW ZEALAND PROBABLE. The Hamilton correspondent of the Auckland Herald says that a cablegram from England on Thursday stated that the control of home-made butter would shortly be removed in Great Britain, and that the retail price was expected to be raised to 2s Sd per lb. Asked as to the probable effect on the >'ew Zealand market, a prominent dairyman said there was probably an error in the cablegram. He regarded it as almost certain that the Imperial Government would maintain control if supplies for a considerable time yet, and that it. was probably now finding it necessary to raise the retail price from 2s fid to 2s Sd per lb. The retail price in England has been 2s fid for some, years. The world-shortage of butter was exceedingly acute, and it was very unlikely that the control would be lifted for a year or two.

The total imports into Great Britain last year were approximately two-thirds less than in IM4. The only normal supplies were from Australia and New Zealand.

The speaker remarked that' the Imperial Government not lons ago purchased a large supply in Denmark at 3s per lb., on top of which were to be adder] shipping and marketing rates. If New Zealand was to have a free market next year,-it was highly probable that an advance would shortly be made in t'll3 price of butter in New eZaland. This would almost certainly happen when the produ ers again secured a free market, as they hoped to do, at the end of July. The price of butter in Australia at the I present time was Is lid per lb. cash, and &s booked. Australian buttor an thi

open market sold at Id per lb. less than the New Zealand produce yet the public were able to purchase the latter at Is Sd per lb. Butter in Canada was sellin" at 3s fid. It was quite obvious, he added, that when the producers secured a free market the Government would be unable to keep up the difference between the market rates and the present controlled price out of the Consolidated Revenue, which would mean something like threequarters of a million a year. At present restaurant-keepers and wealthy people who could well afford to pay full prices, were actually securing their supplies at less than the cost of production, which had gone up by leaps and bounds.