DAIRY EXPORT CONTROL.

Auckland Star, Volume LVI, Issue 66, 19 March 1925, Page 14

DAIRY EXPORT CONTROL.

SUPPORT FOE. THE BOARD. MR. C. PARKER'S VIEWS. (By Telegraph.—Own Correspondent.) HAMILTON, this day. At a conference of delegates of the Dairy Farmers' Union, held at Hamilton, the work of the Dairy Control Board was favourably commented on and received the support of the meeting. Speaking on the matter, the Auckland provincial president, Mr. C. Parker, said the question exercising the minds of dairy farmers and the public generally was whether the Dairy Control 'Board should, by Order-in-Council, be given authority to exercise absolute control over their exportable portion of butter and cheese. He had read with interest correspondence in the Press for and against absolute control, and he must Bay that some of the objections raised ! were rather humorous. One person from the South objected to absolute control on. the grounds that he understood, when the Act was being passed, that that' particular clause would only be put into force in the event of war. They had read of opposition to control by Chambers of Commerce and leading newspapers, and also by a few dairy companies, but after careful study of the elements comprising the opposition he found that a very small percentage indeed represented the dairy farmers. It could be fairly assumed, that the large majority who voted for the Act and its compulsory clause* were still of the same opinion, aud vme prepared to give the Control .Board a fair trial in its attempt to control tiiypir products on the world's markets, lie several small dairy companies who had protested against control had given as their reason that they ha 4, in the past, done \ery well by f.o.b. sales. They may have some grounds for opposing the Control Board's action in prohibiting f.o.b sales. They knew that factories which had adopted this system of selling had, at times, done very well indeed, but they had also made bad sales, and invariably they had not done any better than the factories However, that was not the point the Control Board had to consider when they had to decide whether the f.o.b. sales should be prohibited or not. The fact was that butter and cheese sold f.'o.br had been used for the purpose of what was generally termed "bearing the market," and. in that case, such -sales had been detrimental to the industry as a whole. He thought the Control Board's action was justified, and dairy companies which had been in the habit of selling f.o.b. should be prepared to give the board ari '-opportunity to prove the soundness of ■ the policy it had been advocating and was now going to put into practice.