DOMINION POOL URGED.

Auckland Star, Volume LXI, Issue 164, 14 July 1930, Page 16

DOMINION POOL URGED.

SOUTHLAND RESOLUTION. PROVINCIAL BRAND FAVOURED. (By Telegraph.—Press Association.) INVERCARGILL, Saturday. Dairy factory representatives from all over Southland attended a meeting convened in Invercargill to-day by the Ssuth [sland Dairy Association to discuss the question of branding Southland cheese and also the proposal regarding the payment of premium according to grade. Mr. H. J. Middleton, chairman of the South Island Dairy Association, presided, and Mr. W. G. Wright, secretary of the association; Mr. John Dunlop, a member of the Dairy Board; and Mr. T. C. Brash, secretary of the Dairy Board, were present.

Mr. Middleton explained that at a meeting held in Invercargill a Southland brand was favoured, but at a conference in Dunedin, where many representatives from Southland were present, a unanimous vote favoured a South Island brand representing the whole territory.

Mr. Middleton did not think that Southland's position would be imperilled by adopting a South Island brand. Personally, he thought the great thing was to establish a high standard of produce.

After some discussion a motion was carried that the meeting was emphatically opposed to a South Island brand, and emphatically adhered to its decision to support a Southland brand.

The meeting then discussed the proposal raised at the Hamilton conference regarding the payment of a premium according to grade. The chairman favoured a premium payment scheme being placed on a national basic. He suggested a resolution "that this meeting of representatives of the cheese industry in Southland, viewing with alarm continuous reports which are being received from overseas regarding a serious decline in.the quality of New Zealand cheese, strongly urges the dairy division, in conjunction with the Dairy Board, to take without delay, whatever steps may be necessary to give effect to a scheme for premium payments, as carried at the Hamilton conference, the scheme, however, to be ™ade applicable on a national basis, with one pool for the whole Dominion, instead of being divided into separate groups." Mr. Brash commended Southland and Otago producers on keeping up their quality, while in the North many factories had gone for quantity at the expense of grade. There was opposition in the North to a Dominion pool, because (or a time it would mean the transfer of money from the North «to the South. Now at last the North was alive to the need of doing something with regard to keeping up quality. _ / The motion urging a Dominion pool was carried unanimously.