BREAD AND BUTTER.

Wairarapa Age, Volume XXX, Issue 8464, 14 June 1907, Page 5

BREAD AND BUTTER.

ENORMOUS LOSSES BY SPECULATORS. By Telegraph—Press Association. AUCKLAND, June 13. The Trades and Labour Council carried resolutions strongly protesting against the increased price of bread and urging the Government to prevent short-weight bread being sold and to legislate to prevent the food supply of the people of the colony being interfered with by trusts' and combines.

Referring to the statement published that buyers of butter in this colony have lost heavily during the season and that prices were likely to be lower, Mr Spragg, managing director of the New Zealand Dairy Association, said it was unquestionable that butter speculators who brought butter in the colony last year suffered badly. It was not news to him that single firms had dropped £16,000 and more in the season. The total loss of speculators had been seriously estimated at from £150,000 to £250,000. There was, of course, a chance that statements had been exaggerated, as it would suit prospective buyers to have it understood that they had suffered badly in the last season, because that plea would probably help them to buy more cheaply in the coming one. Whatever the actual amount of the losses they had certainly been enormous.

Pressed for his opinion respecting next year's London market, Mr Spragg said he was not anticipating a worse one than last. Indeed, if New Zealand butter could be sold in a judicious manner and not under pressure as last year, the market might even be a better one.