The Press TUESDAY, JANUARY 13, 1959. Town Milk Dispute

Press, Volume XCVIII, Issue 28792, 13 January 1959, Page 8

The Press TUESDAY, JANUARY 13, 1959. Town Milk Dispute

The Hawke’s Bay Raw Milk Producers’ Co-operative Company has adopted a reprehensible way of trying to enforce its demand for higher payments. The company may consider itself justified by the precedent set very recently by the dairy factory workers; but it was a bad precedent, which the Government ought not to have tolerated. The disregard for normal legal procedure that was condoned in the dairy workers' dispute must not be allowed to spread among either employers (including the selfemployed) or employees. The Government botched its handling of the dairy workers' dispute; it sacrificed a principle for a short-term advantage. If it is to regain the respect of law-abiding citizens, it must now stand firm against any persons who try to take the law into their own hands. The price of town milk is still under negotiation between the Government and the Producers’ Federation, • and the issue has been confused by argument about the basis on which milk prices should be calculated. The producers are

also considering whether to challenge the legal -right of the Minister of Agriculture to fix prices; but the taxpayer is contributing substantial subsidies to the town milk industry. More than most other New Zealanders, members of the industry have a clear duty to co-operate harmoniously, both among themselves and with the rest of the community, to remedy their present difficulties. No section of the industry enjoys the right to embarrass consumers by organising to withhold essential food, for which householders are ready to pay the legal price. The New Zealand Milk Board is obliged to make • good any milk shortages caused by the Hawke’s Bay producers; but in fact the board finds itself unable to meet this obligation. Every sensible person will endorse the view of Mr L. V. Phillips, chairman of the board, that the producers, by their present tactics, are unlikely to win public support to their cause. If they are not to sacrifice all goodwill, the producers should heed Mr Phillips’s plea for a return to their “traditional good sense”.