Dairy Farmers and Sawmillers.

Progress, Volume XVI, Issue 3, 1 November 1920, Page 66

Dairy Farmers and Sawmillers.

The increase in the price of butter for the new season’s output provoked a long discussion at a meeting of the Thorndon branch of the Amalgamated Society of Railway Servants, held recently, and eventually the following motion was carried unanimously:—

“ That, in view of increases in the prices of butter and other necessaries of life, this branch of the A.S.R.S. press for an immediate increase in wages of 2s. per day. We wish to point out that such an increase will not necessitate any further rise in railway rates and fares, as the recent increases and improved conditions involved a sum of £750,000 per annum, whereas it was officially stated that the rise in rates and fares lately given effect to would, it was estimated, produce an additional £1,200,000 per annum of rilway revenue.”

During the discussion, one speaker urged that the dairy producers were inconsistent in their attitude regarding the fixing of prices of butter and cheese for local consumption. He stated that about two years ago dairy farmers brought pressure to bear on the Government, and succeeded in materially restricting the export of white pine timber, only a limited quantity of which was now allowed to leave the Dominion. Not only that, but at; the request of the butter and cheese producers, a maximum price had been fixed on white pine timber sold in the Dominion, so that sawmillers had to accept a much lower price locally than they received for the limited quantity of white pine they were allowed to export. And these butter and cheese producers, he added, raise a howl of indignation when it is proposed that conditions should be imposed on them similar to those whch they were the means of imposing on the sawmillers of the Dominion. He maintained that “ What was sauce for the goose should be sauce for the gander.”