DAIRY BOARD

Dominion, Volume 37, Issue 217, 10 June 1944, Page 8

DAIRY BOARD

Reply To Criticism

(By Telegraph.—Press Association.) DUNEDIN, June 9. Criticism levelled at the chairman of the Dairy Board, Mr. W. E. Hale, by Mr. A. J. Cameron (Outram), at the annual conference .of the Otago Provincial Council of the Farmers’ Union, was replied to by Mr. E. Dunlop, South Island representative on the Dairy Board, at the annual meeting of the South Island Dairy Association. Mr. Dunlop said that a remit had been carried by the Farmers’ Union suggesting a change in the, chairmanship of the Dairy Board, and it had been stated that Mr. Hale was . a non-elective member. Mr. Hale was an elected member, Mr. Dunlop said, being the representative of the New Zealand Co-operative Dairy Company. If every farmer showed the same energy in regard to his dairy herd as Mr. Hale did in regard to his duties there would be no drop in production. Mr. D. Rutledge said that the general feeling of the industry was that it was kept in ignorance of the various conferences held. Their opinion was that the members of the board and the other representatives of the industry had been “outclassed and outmanoeuvred by experts who were brought forward by the Government.” “If the leaders of the dairying industry have not done what you think they should have done, you should change your leaders, but do not wreck your organizations,” said Mr. Andrew Linton (Greytown), one of the North Island representatives on the Dairy Board, who pave an outline of the negotiations with the Government for an increased return. The board had informed the Government last week that there had been an immediate response from the dairy producers to the appeal for increased production, and they asked only that their just grievances be removed.