BUTTER PRICES.

Taranaki Daily News, 16 October 1920, Page 6

BUTTER PRICES.

To the Editor. Sir, —In your sub-leader re above in this day's News you wind up with the now well-worn joke that the farmer is the hardest worked and poorest paid of all. Is it not time that this ridiculous statement was allowed to die a naturaj death. As a "gag", a more or less brainy invention of some few interested farmers' organisers, it has served a useful purpose, probably; but as a statement of fact its truth is, to put it mildly, very doubtful. Would you, as a matter of general interest, show in what manner farm work is "harder' 1 than, say, that of any other worker doing physical labor, or that of a busy newspaper editor, or a post oliice clerk working under much stress? Would you further show definitely, and not by mere assertion, that the statement as to poor pay is anything more than an invention made to delude the ignorant? The Mercantile Gazette of September 20 deals with the question rather well, and, so tar as I know, no attempt has been made to controvert its remarks. It says (inter alia): "Dairying in New Zealand is the most wonderful industry in the. world. It is so unprofitable tliat annually thousands of acres have been turned over to dairying and the industry has grown in a marvellous way. We are asked to believe that this expansion anil this growth is the result of its unprofitable character, Dairying laml has advanced in price enormously; dairy cattle have also advanced in value and there are more people ready to enter this unprofitable industry to-day than has ever been the ease, and the Government is helping returned soldiers to acquire land as one of the best methods of giving them a start. How do those who say the industry is unprofitable account for all this?" Perhaps you could throw a little light on the matter!—l am, etc., F.D. [The dairy industry in Taranaki is not, and never has been, on a sound economic basis. If labor'were adequately rewarded, and trade union hours observed, butter would be selling to-day at a great deal more than the present prices, high as they undoubtedly are. The industry has gone ahead only because of the unrestricted hours worked by the farmer, his wife and children. The price of land has certainly advanced considerably, but mainly at the expense of the wages of those employed in production. Increased prices for'butter-l'at, in other words, have increased the price of land, but no; the remuneration of the dairyman and his family, though, like other people, they have had to meet the steady increase in the cost of living ~ Ed.]