BUTTER PRICES.

Taranaki Daily News, 26 January 1920, Page 2

BUTTER PRICES.

LONDON'S BISING LEVEL. Christehurch, Jan. 22. In conversation wjth a representative of tlie Press an expert in the butter ■business referred to the cablegram from London -which referred to the probable upward tendency in butter prices. It was stated that Home butter makers had been freed from control, but the informant stated that this did not mean .that the price of butter in England would be allowed to soar to an extraordinary level. The control referred to, he said, means that the butter makers need not now sell all their produce to the Government, but may dispose of it pretty well as they think fit. Though this is the case, control will be kept of the actual prices which may be charged. The price before the Government control was removed was on a basis of 2/8 per .pound. A London message states that the Controller had expressed the opinion ■that the price should not be allowed to exceed 4/6, though the producers suggest 6/- per lb. So far as New Zealand is concerned the position at present is that the Government control of butter and cheese will be lifted at the end of July. All producers here want a free market, as was Btated by the recent conference at Wellington, and at present it looks as though they will get it. "Does that mean that the price of butter on the local market will rise to a level witli the London prices?" he was will doubtless have to supply butter at asked. "Not at all," was the reply. The factories here supplying the local market will doubtless have to supply butter at a fixed price, which I think will probably be about 2/- per lb., but their losses will be made up out of the Consolidated Fund; that is to say they will be paid the difference between local and Home market values, so that they will be actually on the same basis as factories which export direct, if butter priees rise to 3/- or oyer. I think that most- of the cheese factories here will make butter. Cheese-making certainly would not be in the same street as butter-making if the price for the latter was over 3/per pound."