DAIRY REGULATIONS.

Evening Post, Volume LXXV, Issue 33, 8 February 1908, Page 6

DAIRY REGULATIONS.

DEPUTATION TO THE MINISTER. I WHAT IS REQUIRED AND DESIRED. j A deputation from the Wellington Dairy Farmers' Union of Employers waited 011 tho Minister of Agricultuve (the Hon. R. M'Nab) to-day to air their views on the dairy regulations gazetted under the Dairy Industry Act on 10th January, 1901. The statement of tho ease for the union was made by Mr. A. J. M 'Curdy (secretary) at great length. It was represented that farmers had been kepi waiting for a great length of time after they had applied for registration »f their clayey premises, that in cases before the court the Inspector should not be vested with such wide powers, and that magistrates should havo the usual power of discrimination, that great anroyanco had besn caused by one inspector approving of a course that was condemned by another, that the time for cleaning milking sheds should be extended to four hours after regular milking time, that ihci union should be asked to arbitrate in certain cases, or, at all events, consulted, that better provision should be made for keeping milk vans on the railway thoroughly clean — and a host of other things of less importance In reply the Minister said he was glad to meet the members of tho union, and the officers of his department (Messrs'. Ritchie and Clifton, whom he had invited to attend) would give careful consideration to the representations made. The desire of the department was to improve tho conditions of the i?:sustry, and he was satisfied the union was similarly actuated. The inspectors (over 300) who had now been appointed, were all competent men, and their qualifications had been carefully looked into. The new regulations which would be issued would bo framed with the idea, not of making them punitive, but educative, and at the end of a year they could be reviewed. 112 did not 6uppose they could reach a stage of absolute satisfaction at the first attempt, but they could see where tho shoe pinched at the end of a yuar. The (control of the city milk supply would be in the hands of the Health Department — also that of the cleanliness of the milk cans. Before the regulations were issued, he would give them his personal supervision.