Tuberculous Cows

Press, Volume LXXXVI, Issue 26179, 1 August 1950, Page 6

Tuberculous Cows

No thinking person will disagree with the Minister of Agriculture (Mr Holyoake) when he says that the Government and the farmers should not permit “ a pound or “ two ” to stand in the way of removing tuberculous cows from the herds supplying fresh milk to the people of New Zealand. The farmers claim compensation of £26 a head for condemned cows, and the Government has so far not been prepared to pay more than £22 10s. In his address to the Town Milk Producers’ Federation, reported recently, Mr Holyoake said: “It is time we stopped “ fooling with the question of “ compensation ”. That this fooling has gone on for four years is a reproach to New Zealand; and if Mr Holyoake can succeed, where his predecessors have failed, in knocking some sense into the negotiators who have haggled so fruitlessly for so long, he will deserve the thanks of everyone. By an amendment to the Stock Act in

1946 the tuberculin testing of cows milked for town supply was made compulsory, and reactors were to be destroyed: After only a few months of operation, the legislation was, in the classic phrase of the' then Minister (Mr Cullen), “in ° abeyance ”, because the farmers considered the compensation too low. It has remained “in abeyance” ever since. The last Government did not take the firm action expected from a Government sure of its own ground and sure that the farmers were unreasonably rejecting fair compensation. The circumstances invited; the inference that the Government' was offering something less than was fair. Mr Cullen admitted as much in the House of. Representatives when he said that farmers, in basing their clainls on the cost of replacing condemned cows, were departing from the “ true’ value ” of cows because the market price was too high. And while he was trying to assess the “ true value ”, the price of cows rose higher, farmers became the more reluctant to accept heavy losses, and more New' Zealanders were infected with tuberculosis through the milk of cows that should have been detected by test and then destroyed. Perhaps in the four years that have passed tuberculosis could have been eliminated from town milk herds. A few pounds a head was put in the balance against human suffering, and weighed it down. The few pounds would have been a good investment even if the only return had been a reduction in the charges upon the country’s medical ser- J vices; a much better return would be assured from saving the lives | and health of New Zealanders now threatened by disease. Mr Holyoake cannot- put the clock back I four years to cancel the misery' that might have been avoided. He can put an end to this fooling now.' If he does this, and nothing else, 1 while he is Minister of Agriculture, he will amply justify his adminis- j tration. I