DAIRY EXPORT CONTROL

Evening Post, Volume CVI, Issue 107, 2 November 1923, Page 6

DAIRY EXPORT CONTROL

No time has been lost in putting the Dairy-produce Export Act into operation. ' It begins to-morrow. Parliament, as representative of the whole community, having passed the measure and then handed it over to a section of. the community to -say whether or no the law should operate, has now completely washed its hands of the whole affair— or may think it has; But already there appears to be trouble among dairy farmers^ver the nomination or selection of members for the new Control Board. The Dairy Farmers' Union has expressed its views on the matter, and they are. not quite the views of the Dairy Council. There is talk of larger interests dominating the smaller; but Mr. William Grounds, who has suc-^ cessfully championed the legislation, has made it quite clear that the Daily Council has no other end in view than to make this Control Board thoroughly representative. This is at it most certainly should, be. Much is made of the value of the produce that will be controlled by the Board, the imposing figure of £16,000,000 bfeihg quoted again and again; but that is what it was last year. From the great progress the industry is making, and especially in the matter of improving the production of butter-fat aiid milk per cow, it will not be long before 'the value of the export trade will be £20,000,000, even at the present level of prices in the London market. The dairy industry may be said to be really only beginning. It ihay be that cheese will become of more and more importance than butter; but whichever way the milk goes, into the vat or the separator, the fact remains that the export of New Zealand produce in a very short while willbe worth fully £20,----000,006—a great sum for any body of men to handle, therefore, in their own interests and those of the Dominion, dairy farmers will have to show a greater interest in the selection of the men who will control' their produce than they did in the recent poll on the Act, when 24 ( 000 dairy farmers abstained from voting one way or»the other, while 22,234 voted that the Act should operate forthwith. '