The City’s Milk Supplies

Dominion, Volume 27, Issue 149, 21 March 1934, Page 11

The City’s Milk Supplies

Sir, Your issue of March 16 contains references ffiade by the acting-chairman of the Municipal Milk Committee and other councillors to nearby farmers’ milk sales, and, to use Mr. Luckie’s own words, by way of innuendo, they would have the general public believe that while we style ourselves farmers, we are nothin’’ more than acting agents for the distribution of city milk. By this. I mean milk supplied by the milk department. Now. sir, having regard to all the circumstances which surround the milk trade in Wellington, this is nothing short of an attempt on the part of one competitor to exploit another, and displays that standard of morality wljich warrants *hat their opponent should be practically helpless before they put the boot in. We are tol d that 57 farmers bought 10.1’91 gallons of milk during last month to make up shortages. Let us sec what lhese figures reveal. Fifty-seven men buy 10.5J1 gallons of milk in 28 days, approximately 6i gallons per day '(only) during the worst season for the production of milk that the Wellington district has experienced for twenty years. "Whv do the nearby farmers buy such a small amount,” although it sounds large in the aggregate I And why do not the representatives of this bicephalous monster give the general publie the true position, instead of insinuating that as a. body of farmers we are only parasites? Briefly, the facts are these:* The nearby farmer is debarred by law from buying an ounce of milk other than from the City Council. Having complied with the law, he lays himself open to be flayed in the manner described in vour column of the 16th. Further than this, the last session of Parliament vested powers in the Wellington City Council that it would hesitate to grant its Commissioner of Police, by investing them with an open warrant to search nearby farmers’ premises any time they or their inspector suspects him of doing something contrary to their (the milk department’s) interest. Truly a nice state of affairs, when one competitor is permitted by law to hound another in the manner described. Another councillor infers that a council customer had turned the milk department down because he had been supplied with bad milk, nnd had gone to a nearby iarmer to get the same milk as supplied bv them. Is it, I ask. any wonder that we find the country in its present position, when such utter piffle emanates ironi public men?—l am, etc., JAS. PURCHASE, Chairman, Nearby Farmer? South Makara, March 17, 1934.