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Show The Milk Battle Continues THE $3,500,000,000-a year milk business, vital to the public from a health standpoint and . to the farmer because It accounts for 20 per cent of farm income, Is under fire all over the nation. Recently the federal trade commission charged that large distributors, acting In concert, con-cert, dictate the price of milk In many large cities. The commission recommended a system of "cash and carry" sales from retail stores "as a method for reducing the cost of milk to the consuming public"! and said experiments Indicate such system might also "put more money Into the pockets of producers." In New York and Chicago the battle over mtlkgoesonwlthout " letupt The Chicago - Tribune, for Instance, has long fought the federal fed-eral control system in the Chicago milk shed, set up under the department of agriculture. They accuse the government-sponsored system ef operating to Increase retail prices of milk to the detriment of both farmer and consumer. In New York, much attention Is being focused on fiber two-quart square milk container which permits a saving of one and a half cents a quart to the consumer, with no reduction In the price paid the farmer. - Here In Salt Lake City the milk marketing situation has been a battleground for months, with a fight over Introduction of a two-quart milk bottle, an Injunction suit against the milk marketing administrative agency, and lately a demand that the agency be reorganized on the ground that the "major dairies are dominating and controlling the administrative agency for their benefit." . Where there Is so much smoke there must be a little fire. , In its November Issue, Fortune magazine attempted to fight its way through the smoke and find the fire. They came back with these statements: The farmer gets from 3 to 5 cents a quart for his milk, but it costs the housewife from 9 to 16 cents. The average American drinks 80 less quarts of milk each year than his minimum health requirement. From 1929 to 1936 per capita consumption ot milk In the U. S. dropped 6.8 per cent " The prise ot milk has been maintained at a relatively higher figure than other necessities during the depression. In 1938 the milk price Index was 91, compared to all foods at 78.9, clothing at 82.3 and rent at 69.5. Fortune magazine had much the same recommendation as the federal trade commis-l commis-l slon as the answer to lower milk prices. They declared that store method of distribution ' makes possible savings which would permit sale of milk at from two to four cents a quart under the home-delivered price. They cited as proof experience of Safeway stores In the San Bernardino-Riverside area which found all costs ef delivery came to less than a half cent a quart, and the whole cost from farmer to consumer was only three cents. Big hindrance to this saving In distribution I costs, the magazine declares, are laws or In-' In-' tlmldation pressure which force stores to sell at the same price as home-delivered milk or at I a differential of only one cent Fortune magazine did not mention savings I through use of the two-quart bottle which, according ac-cording to preliminary Indications here and in ' New York City, makes possible savings of from ; one cent to two cents a quart. Whatever the outcome of all this commotion over the nation on the price of milk. It seems 1 that It wlU ultimately prove beneficial for the nation as a whole probably resulting In greater ! consumption of milk, larger Income for the farm j producers, and a sounder basis for one ot the nation's biggest businesses. |