DAIRY CONTROL BILL

Evening Post, Volume CVI, Issue 38, 14 August 1923, Page 10

DAIRY CONTROL BILL

PROTEST FROM CHAMBER OF

COMMERCE,

(SI TBLEGKAPH.—PRESS ASSOCIATION.} (

AUCKLAND, 13th August.

T'ue Dairy Control Bill was discussed by the Chamber o£ Commerce, which carried a motion of protest against the adoption ol proposals enforcing compulsory control in tho marketing of dairy produce overseas on the following ground :—(1) That the inalienable right of tho individual to dispose of the fruits of his labour was abrogated or restricted, since the farmer would be compelled to hand over his produce to persons not of his own selection for sale at a price in the fixing of which he had no voice. (2) That a monopoly in tho distribution for sale in overseas markets of the production of the Dominion's most rapidly expanding industry was placed in* the hand of 11 individuals. (3) That whereas tho promoters' avowed desire and intention was themselves to undertake, when possible, the shipping and insurance business incidental to the export trade and also to supply all the requirements of the farming community in equipment and domestic supplies, the proposed monopoly would enable the grantees to coerce dissentients to the exclusion of the ordinary trader, whereas co-op-erative undertakings were practically free of income tax it followed that the loss of income tax which would otherwise have been leviable upon the profits from those sources in the usual way would have to be shouldered by the remainder of the community in the form of an enhanced scale. (4) That since tho proposed centralisation of the control of sales overseas must almost necessarily involve placing a limited number of selected agents or importers in a preferential position, those importers outside the favoured few would assuredly resent discrimination by centreing their efforts upon the development oi other sources of supply, thus intensifying competition while alienating from the Dominion much of that sympathetic consideration which ha.d beea extended to it in the Home markets since'l9l4.