Edition Bobbett1. Texts by Elizabeth F. Bobbett: 1.1.3. Correspondence, Letters to newspapers

1943 Elizabeth Bobbett: Letter to the Irish Independent, 08.04.1943

Butter Price1

Sir. At a meeting in Dublin on 26th March of the Retail Grocery Trades, convened by the Retail Family Grocers’, Purveyors’, Dairy Proprietors' and Allied Traders' Association to consider the present butter prices, and the position of the trade generally, a letter was read from the Department of Supplies which stated: “The Minister is convinced that it would be an unjust imposition on the community as a whole to permit of any further increase in the price of butter. He had given the Association’s representations very full consideration. In view of the publicity the whole question had received and the erroneous impressions which the public might have drawn, it was desirable to set out the following facts: 1) Since April, 1942, when the price of milk was fixed at 9d a gallon, there was no control until the recent Order over butter retail price, and between that date and the Order the prevailing price to the consumers was 2/- a lb in the Dublin Ration area. The Order fixed this price as a maximum.”

I cannot let the above erroneous statements as to the price for milk received by the farmers to go unnoticed. I wish to contradict the statement that the price for milk to the farmer was fixed at 9d per gallon in April, 1942. The price was raised in April, 1942, from 6d to 7d per gallon, and it was only about 10th September, 1942, that the price was raised to 9d per gallon. Now during that period, April to September, the retail price of butter in most districts was 1/9 per lb and 1/10 per lb. The bulk of the butter is made at the creameries during May to September, so that when the price of butter was raised to 2/- per lb in September my Federation sent a resolution to the Minister for Agriculture asking that the price fixed for milk at 9d per gallon be made retrospective to the farmers, otherwise it was unfair to increase the price of butter which was manufactured with the cheap milk from the farmers. The farmers did not get the price as from April, 1942. Indeed, had the farmers been given a just price in April, 1942, the present necessity for rationing might have been avoided.

1 - The same letter was published in the Limerick Leader, 12.04.1943.