The Auckland Star: WITH WHICH ARE INCORPORATED The Evening News, Morning News and The Echo. WEDNESDAY, JANUARY 23, 1929. AN OMINOUS WARNING.

Auckland Star, Volume LX, Issue 19, 23 January 1929, Page 6

The Auckland Star: WITH WHICH ARE INCORPORATED The Evening News, Morning News and The Echo.

WEDNESDAY, JANUARY 23, 1929. AN OMINOUS WARNING.

For the cause that lacks assistance, For the wrong that needs resistance, For the future in the distance, And the pood that hoc can do.

It is to "be "hoped that the widest publicity will be given to the remarks made yesterday at Hawera concerning the. quality of our dairy products by a representative of one of the leading British firms handling our butter and cheese. Sir Thomas Clement speaks with authority on all matters connected with this special trade, and what he has to say demands the most careful consideration from our Government as well as from the producers. Briefly, the charge made by Sir T. Clement is that "the quality of New Zealand butter and cheese is not as good as it should be"; more definitely that the quality of both these staple products has shown in recent years a distinct change for the worse.

There is no reason to doubt the testimony of so well-informed and experienced a critic, and it would be difficult to exaggerate the gravity of the situation thus disclosed. For reasons which Sir T. Clement discussed at some length, neither our butter nor our cheese is maintaining the high standard of quality which built up for us in the first instance our extensive and highly profitable export of dairy products to Britain. That trade has been established in the face of keen competition, which it still has to face. Any failure on the part of our dairy farmers and manufacturers to keep up the high quality of our dairy products must have the most disastrous effect not only upon the sale of our butter and cheese at the present time, but on the future reputation and prestige of the Dominion as one of the world's great dairying centres. Sir T. Clement dwelt upon the immense increase in sales and profits that could be secured by an improvement in the quality of our products. Unfortunately the converse of the proposition is equally true, and a decline in the quality of our butter and cheese must inevitably entail heavy losses upon the country and perhaps involve the continuous and permanent decay of this great and profitable industry.

As to the causes -which are tending to produce these unfortunate results, Sir T. Clement had a good deal to say. In part, the deterioration of our butter and cheese may be due to the more general employment of fertilisers and to pasteurisation. These changes in methods of production may be desirable and inevitable, but they may necessitate readjustments in the process of production which have not yet been successfully made. A more serious ground for anxiety is "the mad scramble for a big yield," implying not only the premature exhaustion of our pasturage, but undue haste in methods of manufacture, and a consequent disregard for the high standards in quality originally attained. All these matters deserve the most serious attention from our dairy farmers and the experts in control of our butter and cheese factories. For the interests at stake are simply enormous, and neither the State nor the people of "Sew Zealand can afford to neglect this warning.