THE CONTROL ISSUE.

Auckland Star, Volume 304, Issue 304, 23 December 1926, Page 4

THE CONTROL ISSUE.

WILL COMPULSION LAST? TOOLEY STREET VIEW.?. Will the system of compulsory control i >f dairy produce last? This is the question ; hat still agitates dairy- interests both m; ■ \~ew Zealand and in London. One of thei eading dairy produce merchants in Tooicy j Street, who has handled New Zealand . nroduce for many years, refers to the josation as follows:— i The fight so far as concerns the terms : and conditions of sale is over at this end. j and you can take it that although the, various firms have accepted the board"*, terms, they are not by any means in ■ agreement wit'i the policy and procedure to be adopted, aid they have only accepted the £oods uno . compulsion because otherwise it meant going right out of the New Zealand business. By no stretch of imagination can anyone regard this kind of thing as co-operation, it is. in fact, compulsion of the worst order. "Sot only do these remarks apply to the agents for the board, but the whole trade throughout the country. There is no section of the trade that would approve the board's policy if asked their opinion, and further than this, several sections of the trade | have already exjiressed their disapproval without being asked. When a proposition is put up which is unsatisfactory to at least half the producers in Xew Zealand, and every branch of the trade in England, it requires an optimist to manage the affair, and 1 should not imagine that such an optimist could be iound if h.s remuneration was to be based on tne success of the policy to be adopted. If the Control Board authorities had to meet the buyers themselves and hear what they had to say on the subject, they would probably change their policy very quickly. As it is. they are secure in their offices and unaffected by all the various expressions of opinion and criticisms to be heard on the market. This ..state of affairs is so unsound fundamentally, that it surely cannot last very long, and personally I should not be surprised to see a changeover to the Australian method of control I almost any time. LONDON MERCHANT'S VIEWS. Writing by the last English mail, a well-known London produce dealer comments as follows on the inauguration ot the compulsory system of marketing adopted by the New Zealand Dairy Produce Board: — To-day is Monday, and we have only had experience of selling under control since last Thursday afternoon, and during this short interval, we have met with nothing but disagreeable remarks from everybody to whom we have offered the goods. The general attitude of the buyers is not to buy any New Zealand produce unless absolutely compelled to do so, the main objection being the fixed price policy. Buyers of provisions in this country have always in the past had some kind of a say in the price that they would pay. whereas, now it is a case of take it or leave it. If two varieties of the article are for sale, one of them subject to price negotiation, and the other subject Lo take it or leave it. can you imagine the mentality of the buyer who yvould give preference to the latter. By viewing tbe matter from this standpoint, you can get a very fair idea as to bow much a fixed price method is going to benefit the producer.