PRICE DICTATION

Evening Post, Volume CXII, Issue 29, 3 August 1926, Page 6

PRICE DICTATION

"Dictation and any attempt at price- , fixing would, iv my opinion, be suicidal.*' Thia ia tho opinion of, the Prcsir dont of the New Zealand Farmers' Union after ho has studied tho Danish methods of butter-marketing, and tliq operation of the British market. Tho address which Mr. Poison delivered today contains some sound advice for *ifch.e ftajness in New; Ztaland^ and soinej

facts which the Dairy Produce Export Control Board would do well to ponder. Tho Danish system of price control, he states, has no compulsory features. The greatest importance is attached, not to prico but. to freshness. "The most important function of tho committee is to see that "Danish buttor readies the consumer fresh." In other words, the Danes eoncentrato upon the production and marketing 'of an article which will command top prices, and do not attempt to raise those prices by artificial means. Tho Now Zealand Board no doubt appreciates to tho full the importance of quality; but Mr. Poison affirms that it is under suspicion at Home. "Members of tho Commission of which I was recently a member," he states,, "who made careful investigations in most of tho important centres of Great Britain, were astonished and alarmed at the hostility of many who had formerly been our customers, and who were now purchasing other butters." The fear of a policy of price-dictation, which ia at the root of this hostility, will bo difficult to remove now, but it will be still more difficult once the proposed compulsory control is in operation. Customers will ask, and not without reason, why is compulsory control necessary if the Board's operations are not directed at the price? There is yet time to reconsider the absolute control decision, and to adopt a poljf y which may be operated with the assistance of our customers and not in face of their resistance. ' .