MILK INQUIRY

Press, Volume LXXIX, Issue 23917, 8 April 1943, Page 3

MILK INQUIRY

TASKS FOR COMMISSION STATEMENT BY CHAIRMAN (P.A.) WELLINGTON, April 6. The Milk Commission, consisting of Messrs W. R. Tuck (chairman), G. W. Dell, and A. H. Ward began its sittings to-day. Mr Tuck said that the commission had been appointed to inquire into the supply of milk to the four metropolitan areas and such other areas as might later be directed by the Minister of Agriculture. Other matters under its scope were an alteration and reorganisation in the methods of supply, treatment, and distribution that might be necessary in such areas to ensure at reasonable prices adequate supplies of milk of high standard, and also the supply of milk to the armed forces, including allied forces.

The commission was not an arbitral body to establish the disposition of a fund as between contributors to the milk supply in the centres. It did not propose to usurp the functions of any other body such as the Price Tribunal or any arbitrator appointed between the city council and. say, the producers in Wellington, though its investigations and reports might have an important bearing on such questions. It might well be that any recommendation it wished to make in regard to increased supplies might at once raise the question of a necessary inducement to ensure those supplies, and any question of a reasonable price to the consumer might be bound up with questions' affecting the cost of production and distribution, so that directly and indirectly its report and recommendations might have an important bearing on questions of that kind.

It would be necessary for the commission to bear in mind that the present policy in New Zealand was one of stabilisation of prices, especially those relating to the cost of living. They had to exert themselves to prevent any development, not " absolutely necessary, that would adversely affect the price level in New Zealand.

When making their representations to the commission the parties would have to remember that there was a distinction between long-term, and short-term policy. The commission was not limited to the period of the war in its order of reference. It might well be that it would wish to make recommendations that could not be carried into effect in the immediate future.

Some of the sittings could bo held in open court, while others relating to the armed forces ccu'd not. After the Wellington s’ttinr, it was proposed to visit Christchurch, Dunedin. and Auckland, and then return to Wellington.