DAIRY CONTROL

Evening Post, Volume CIX, Issue 116, 20 May 1925, Page 6

DAIRY CONTROL

THE FORTHCOMING ELECTION

Mr. Jacob Marx, chairman of the Free Marketing League, before leaving for his home in Tarariaki this molding, stated to a representative of " The Post " that it was not correct to say the approaching election to fill the vacancies on the Dairy Board was being contested on the question of " Control v; No" Control." There was no opposition, Mr. Marx explained, among those who disapproved of the " absolute control" policy of the Dairy Board to the measure of- control exercised by the Meat Board. That had proved helpful and entirely acceptable to the producers. The " absolute control " contemplated by the Dairy Board, however, was a very different thing, leaving the producers with no voice in the handling and working of their produce, jand was open to very grave objection. But that point was not involved in the forthcoming election. A majority of the board, whatever the result of the election, would remain pledged to the policy of absolute control. The only remedy for the existing state of, affairs seemed to be an amendment of the'lawin the direction of the ward system which would not leave the dairy interests in the other parts of the North Island, at any rate, absolutely at the mercy of the block vote in the Auckland Province. Mr. Marx hoped that legislation of the kind would be passed at the earliest possible, moment, and that it would have a steadying effect upon those members of the board who seemed ready to enter upon the wildest and most perilous experiments with other people's property. .

. In a. letter to the Editor one of the North Island candidates, Mr. Henry Bodley, states that the statement in yesterday's "Post" that the main issue will be fought out on the question of control or no control, is misleading. The farmers' viewpoint, he says, is: Shall they find the. cows, the cost of feeding, and the land, and hand all control of produce values over to those who are not seized of any of the risks, and who are, in fact, i indemnified against the risks of their own defects and defaults? He maintains that it is not control, but the quality of control that is claimed to be wrong. The present kind of control provided for by the Act was not asked tor by the farmers, but was put over them by those who sought to handle. ±Rom a safe vantagepoint, the produce of" the farms. A lot had been said about absolute control," and the inhibition until 1926, but acts of absolute control Y ero ,g?mg ori all the time, and the Act did not restrain the board from making up for liabilities incurred any- ■ where, short of committing the entire value of the total produce, or of dippine into the very pockets of the general taxpayers of the country -