POOLS AND PUBLIC

Evening Post, Volume CVI, Issue 31, 6 August 1923, Page 4

POOLS AND PUBLIC

.EXAMPLE OF QUEENSLAND

HOW NEW ZEALAND INTERVENED.

Labour Governments are popularly supposed to be naturally and bitterly hostile to trade pools and combinations, but Queensland provides a notable exception. The fears of the public that pools, especially in the necessaries of life, bode no good, to the consumer are not without reason; but it seems different in. the St-ite. of Queensland. There the _ Labour Party, with Mr. Theodore at its _ head, has been in power for a ■long time, and there a butter pool is operating in the special interests of dairy farmers at the expense of the general consumer.

Tho butter pool not only monopolised the local market, but endeavoured to take_ advantage of the shortages in production in New South Wales and Victoria. This latter move was met by heavy importations of butter from New Zealand, the ill-wind of the Victorian situation in particular blowing decidedly in favour of the Dominion. The Australian market opened to New Zealand at the very moment when the London market, was unptopitious, and the business was, therefore, extremely welcome. For the past six months 1103 tons of butter have been exported to Australia,- and this welcome • little sideline at the low price of Is 5d per pound was worth, roughly, £175,000. • Queensland butter, notwithstanding its price.being so high that New South Wales and Victoria in self-defence were compelled to turn to New Zealand, was so dear jn Queensland itself that—as was reported in "The Post" at the timeBrisbane shopkeepers found it greatly to their advantage and that of their customers to buy Queensland butter in Sydney, have it shipped back to its State of origin, and then under-sell tho pool an the local market. New Zealand butter competing in Australia did not benefit tho Queensland consumers directly but it seriously upset the pool's operations m Victoria and New Souith Wales, and the Queensland stranglehold on the Sydney and Melbourne markets was presently relaxed. In commenting on the fact that Labour Governments and pools inimical to the general interests of the consumers can work hand in hand, "The 4ustralasian remarks :—"So much publicity has been given to the socialistic aims ol ■ Labour ■in Australia that it would have been reasonable to assume that opponents of its ideals were alive to the serious position with which' the community would ho faced were Labour's objective attained. In no State has the extremist movement been more pronounced than in Queensland, and, despite the new solicitude shown by tho Theodore Ministry for the primary industries, it behoves tho producers to consider carefully the possible outcome of any steps they may take in the compulsory pooling of their produce Farmers in Queensland are all moving in this direction. Their appeals to Mr. Theodore for assistance in tne poolX Pr a °n P? Sal h? Ve b?eS fflefc synpathUicnftfe 'f° al" P^PS. the adoption out well for them. There is now clam: IZ «L a com Pulsory mill< Pool and an egg pool, and compulsion will, perhara be sought m the pooling of butter «' pecaUy^f the proposals to bring stebils^JoVif D^ k'St^ re nof; unanimously supported. Thus the producers themselves also adopt socialistic methods No blame can be attached to their combin pfcr^r^a^i^

"There was a time not long a^o when the producers in Queenslaifd received short shrift from the Ministry, but fo day ; they are being nursed carefully b y aw \h P7" lf m becomes a matter ,'f law then the farmers, when they think pas &st«s£iiw

dmW^ ° C°-"tro1 ould these producers organisations be establish*/* a prosperous footing? TW i« , % *? n