DAIRY EXPORTS

Evening Post, Volume CX, Issue 52, 29 August 1925, Page 6

DAIRY EXPORTS

PROTEST AGAINST ABSOLUTE

CONTROL

ATTITUDE OF CHAMBERS OF

COMMERCE.

<ir miait*PH.—speciai to thi tost.j

DUNEDIN, This Day.

At the annual meeting of the Duncdin Chamber of Commerce, the president, Mr. Peter Barr, tsaid: "There tan be no doubt it was not generallyunderstood when the Dairy Produce Export Control Bill was passed in 1923 that it gave the board power to assume absolute control without first obtaining the sanction of tho Government, and tho opinion of the At-torney-General that it did give such power came as a surprise, even, apparently, to tho Minister of Agriculture. That opinion has not been questioned, and to the layman the provision of Bection 13, that control may, as tho board in any case determines, be, absolute or limited, is perfectly clear. It has been asserted that the interest taken in this matter by chambers of commerce has been engineered by thoso whose profits are derived from the handling of dairy produce. I am in the position to deny that this charge is justified. Members of our own and other chambers, who are directly interested in the business, form a very small proportion of the total, and the resolutions of protest and concern have been supported by an overwhelming majority. They have been passed bocause the chambers are not at all satisfied that the intention of the board to assume the whole control of sales of dairy produce as from August, 3926, will prove to be in the best interests of tho producers themselves, and, consequently, in the interests of the whole country. They, feel very apprehensive of the .possible results of power being conferred upon a small group, exempted by Statute from claims that may be made against them, to speculate with nearly £20,000,000 annually of the country's produce. Surely, having such doubts, they wore justified in giving expression to them without being charged v.'ith being actuated by entirely selfish motives or by antagonism to tho dairy farmers. The chambers are now and always ready to support any movement that they believe to be for the benefit of the farmers, or, in other words, for the good of tin country, but they must be so convinced."