THE MILK PROBLEM.

Dominion, Volume 1, Issue 90, 9 January 1908, Page 4

THE MILK PROBLEM.

■ Although the Committee get up by the City Council to investigate the possibility of improving the milk supply of the city is disinclined to say much about its conclusions, and has, indeed, not yet determined upon its recommendations, it is, possible to believe that its report will be. a very reasonable one. It is premature, Ave are told, to say that the Committee has decided against: the : municipalisation that Dr. Mason has so persistently advocated in abstract and unpractical language. But we are.not told that it is incorrect that the Committqe prefers improved inspection to any scheme of municipalisation. Discussing the question on November 30 last we doubted whether an effective instalment of municipalisation could be applied at a reasonable cost, and we complained of,the want of ." practical suggestions" in the;discussion of the subject, About the same time a plea by Sir John Gorst for the municipalisation of the milk supply had set on foot a very valuable controversy in Manchester, and we find that the '' Manchester Guardian,"'in a review of the controversy on November 20 last,-gen-erally bears out, the .views we previously expressed. l 1 Just as in. ]S T ew Zealand nothing useful can be done until, to quote our own words, "the practical brain comes to the aid of theory," so in Manchester s the practical brain has not been busy.' A multitude of correspondents suggested ' ' municipalisation". liu Manchester, but no tVo of them meant the same tliirig, and the Guardian " concluded, therefore, that " not much serious practical thought has been given to the' subject." Some people; desired' "a, small and expensive municipal, supply for the benefit of the well-to-do"; others meant by ''municipalisation" municipal competition with' existing suppliers; others again 'favoured municipal monopoly ; and still others advocated the nationalisation of. the supply from its very beginnings, It is essential that before we decide upon municipalisation, we must what we want and mean to do. The milk supply is such a complicated business, involving so many sets -of traders—a chain of processes,, as it "that it is not much use strengthening one'link, or two or-more links, unless all are equally strengthened, For the supply is no purer than the most unclean of the processes that go to . its making. TJnless the dairy_ farms are clean, municipal distribution cannot achieve very much. We pointed out in our earlier article that a municipal " clearing house," while it might greatly reduce the risks of contamination at one stage, would not do anything for the subsequent stages. The " Manchester ; Guardian " thus states the general theory of which our argument was a particular case : " If you must municipalise the distribution, you must municipalise the production; and, on the other hand, if there is no necessity to municipalise the production on the farm, there is equally no necessity to municipalise the .distribution. ;l'f inspection will do in the one case, it will do in the other; and if it is unsatisfactory in the one, it .is likely to be unsatisfactory in both." Excepting to Socialists, it is clear that.it is better for,'the City , Council to see that the, inilk supply is good than to supply good milk itself. 7