The Auckland Star: WITH WHICH AND INCORPORATED The Evening News, Morning News, The Echo and The Sun. WEDNESDAY, AUGUST 16, 1939. DROP IN PRODUCTION.

Auckland Star, Volume LXX, Issue 192, 16 August 1939, Page 8

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

WEDNESDAY, AUGUST 16, 1939. DROP IN PRODUCTION.

For the cause that lacks assistance, for the wrong that needs resistance, For the future in (he distance, And the good that we can do.

"For the first time in my recollection butterfat has shown a reduction for two .seasons in succession, and this season is open ins: inauspiciously." The quotation is from the address given to-day by the chairman of directors of the New Zealand Co-operative Dairy Company, which every year until recently has recorded that all previous production records have been broken. Its steady progress has been regarded as an index of the general progress of the dairying industry. Now that progress has been seriously checked. Government members of Parliament have been saying that the setback is attributable to a bad season. Mr. McKenzie pointed out that the dairying industry had hwl bad seasons before, but the effects had been offset in a large degree by the normal increase in production. "This normal increase has ceased." Why has it ceased 1 Because, said Mr. McKenzie, the farmer has neither been encouraged nor has he the means to increase production. It is unnecessary to emphasise the actual and potential gravity of this situation. There is, indeed, no reason to doubt that the Government appreciates it, and Government leaders have emphasised the need of increasing production. As in other matters, the Government wills the end, but it does not will the means.

Mr. McKenzie mentioned, as one of the causes of the drop in production, the difficulty of securing farm labour, and he deplored the fact that so little money waa being spent by the State Housing Department on rural housing. This criticism is not new, but it has never been adequately answered. Great as the need is in the cities for new houses, the effort to meet it ought to be subordinated to an effort to house country workers. But there is another side to the picture of reduced production. Mr. McKenzie mentioned that two of the company's products, dried milk and condensed milk, are now subject to a quota in England. Ho remarked that the entry of butter cheese was still unrestricted, and emphasised the importance of cultivating the goodwill of the United Kingdom, so that there would be no restriction. Goodwill is of course essential, but it may be doubted that, in view of the policy now being pursued by the Minister of Agriculture in the United Kingdom, goodwill can be sufficient. Did Mr. Nash in London receive any assurance that the policy of restriction which has already affected New Zealand mutton and processed milk will not, in the next few years, be applied to butter and cheese f In the absence of such an assurance the farming industry will lack one of the incentives to increase production which has been strong in the past, even though it has been taken for granted.