DAIRY CONTROL BOARD

Dominion, Volume 21, Issue 288, 5 September 1928, Page 14

DAIRY CONTROL BOARD

WHOM DOES IT REPRESENT? REPEAL OF ACT SUGGESTEI By Telegraph.—Press Association. Pahiatua, September 4. There was sharp criticism at the annual meeting yesterday of the Rexdale Co-operative Dairy Company concerning the Dairy Produce Control Board. In reply to questions by Mr. W. R. Rouse, Mr. E. J. G. Brechin agreed that the time had arrived for some definite action by the dairy farmers throughout the length aud breadth of the Dominion. There was not the slightest ' doubt in his mind that the Dairy Produce Control Board had been captured by the commercial interests of the Dominion. Their efforts had been assisted by the votes of a few individuals, who could not by any stretch of the imagination be called the representatives of the

dairy farmers. They had practically made the operation of the board of no more moment than if the board did not exist. The present board was making .much ado about nothing and was trying to exist on the good work done while the dairy farmers controlled it. The present position was intolerable. It was a striking fact that even the present chairman of the board, Mr. W. A. lorns, was neither a chairman of a dairy company uor a director of one. As indicating the class of business the board was doing, Mr. Brechin stated that quite recently the board had received an offer from the National Dairy Association of New Zealand and the South Island Dairy Association to continue to carry out the shipping of dairy produce from all ports except Wellington, the cost to be £2OOO per annum. The secretary of the board bad been requested to prepare an estimate of the cost if the board carried out this work itself. His estimate was £3160 per annum. A committee of the board was set up to report, the committee consisting of the chairman, a commercial representative, and one other member who had previously been anti-control. Notwithstanding the fact that tlie report of the committee was what one would expect from its constitution, the members of the board voted in equal numbers for and against the report that the board should take over the work at a higher cost. The voting was as follows, said Mr. Brechin, and he advised those interested in the operations of the board to examine the names very carefullv: For the work to be done at £2OOO, Messrs. Grounds, Ferguson, Winks, Hine, Reynolds and Corrigan; for the expenditure of over £3OOO for the same work, Messrs, lorns. Chapman, Hunt, Timpany, Lee, and Fulton. The voting was therefore equal, and it was necessary for the chairman to use his casting vote. Mr. lorns did this, and in doing so departed from all recognised precedent by voting against the existing system, which was also the least costly for the industry. If it could have been shown that the work accomplished by the associations was not up to the mark, then the chairman of the board might reasonably have cast his vote as he did, but in view of the fact that he had already made laudatory remarks, which the board had endorsed, upon the fine work accomplished for the board by the associations, he surely was not studying the dairy producers when he threw away over £lOOO of their money by using his casting vote in the manner he did. Mr. Brechin stressed the point that it was significant that the “Exporter,” which gives the dairy farmers of the Dominion the official news of the doings ot the board, did not mention the division on this matter of shipping, nor had the division list yet been published. The meeting unanimously resolved:— That in the opinion of this meeting the matter of continuation of the Dairy Produce Control Board should be seriously considered by the dairy industry as a whole, with view to: (1) The elimination of the Act; and (2) to a drastic revision of its personnel with a view to having the members of the board being representative of thc dairy farmers only.”