NEW ZEALAND POULTRY ASSOCIATION BLUNDERS.

Press, Volume LIV, Issue 9834, 17 September 1897, Page 2

NEW ZEALAND POULTRY ASSOCIATION BLUNDERS.

As I anticipated, the Christehurch, Sydenham, Ashburton and Dunedin societies have decided not to tamely submit to the manner in which their delegates were treated at the annual meeting of the New Zealand Poultry Association, held in Aucklaud a few weeks ago. This was only to be expected. It was most unlikely that these societies should submit to the action of any meeting which, by force of numbers, ruled that they (the four societies mentioned) should have only two votes between them, while each of the other societies by the same ruling were allowed two votes. Yet this is what the ruling of the chairman of the meeting indicated amounted to, small wonder, therefore, that tlie audacity and unfairness of the thing should cause the four sooieties mentioned to protest. Whether their protests will cause the Association to mend its ways is doubtful, but this need not bother the southern societies. If the northern societies are too proud to back down and assist tho3e in the south to remedy things then the Christohuroh, Dunedin, Sydenham, and Ashburton Societies are powerful enough to manage the businesa properly themselves, until the others see the errors oi their ways. The blunder made by the northern delegates in not allowing the southern one 3 their just rights, was not the only one made at the meeting. In fact it was blundering from start to finish, and one would have thought that instead of men particularly smart in their respective grooves of life taking part, the meeting was composed of delegates from marble clubs for boysunderten. Blunder 2 was made when the meeting offered the southern delegates the privilege of recording their full number of votes after the first question had been decided. The rules allow each society two vote 3on all questions, no distinction is made. Four vice-presidents were elected, and this may be called blunder 3, though ft ia a harmless one. Neither the rules existing or in those made at the meeting provide for vicepresidents. The rules of the Association aHow each society affiliated the privilege of having a champion show m turn and the rules also state that £3 3s is the fee each society shall pay annually to the Association. The meeting, however, decided that the champion shows should be held alternately in Dunedin, Christchurch, Wellington and Auckland, and that the fee for the societies in these centres be £5 6s and in other centres £2 2s. In deciding this without notice of motion blunder 4 was committed and in so deciding without first rescinding previous rules blunder 5 occurred. The meeting also decided that all shows held by affiliated societies be judged by the one set of standards. Of course they ought. But the Association deoided on this four years ago, and as I have frequently pointed out in these columns, most of the societies announced in their schedules that their exhibitions would be judged by standards, not the ones agreed upon by the Association, but standards out of date long ago. I have also frequently pointed out that the Association never interfered with the said societies in adhering to the out of date standard, so that the Association made blunder number six in again deciding on uniform standards when a rule to that effect oxisted ; and when the Association decided to alter and amend all its rules and only amended a few the Association made blunder seven. Tbe meeting should have done the lot or none at all when at it, though it seems rather superfluous on the part of tbe delegates at Auckland to talk about altering rules when they so persistently ignored those they had. But why mention more blunders, the above will show that it was time for someone to interfere and that the southern societies have good cause to take action, or the northern ones either for that matter. I did think, as others did also, that the Association would be a power for good in connection with the fancy in this colony, this view I expressed in tms journal as far back as 1892. But I have to confess that the manner in which the business of the Association has been conducted, instead of making it a power in the land, has made it become a laughing stock and a hissing among the fancy.