DAIRY CONTROL

Evening Post, Volume CXIII, Issue 114, 17 May 1927, Page 3

DAIRY CONTROL

EDITOR WHO SUFFERED

BOARD WILL BE "SCRAPPED*

# ■■' ■ • • (Krom Oar Own CorrtspontfMt) > LONDON, 29th March. - Some month* ago, it will be Vtaembered, the editor of the "Imperial Foo«J Journal" brought a case aganst.Miv J. B. Wright, European manager of the New Zealand Dairy Produce Board, alleging that Mr. "Wright, when manager of the New Zealand Co-operative JJairy Company, had influenced certain. firms to withdraw their advertisements from his journal. The Judge held that plaintiff had not proved a prima facie case, and so the editor and proprietor of the -journal lost a good, deal of, money over the action. . ,

In the present edition of the "ImI perial Food Journal" the position of the Dairy Producers' Board is naturally referred to. There is a certain human interest in the editor's remarks, Beeing that he, risked a good deal and lost more than he could afford in'tryirig to warn the producers that they were steering towards the rocks.----"It is easy in the" hour of cataclysm," he says, "for the onlooker to | indulge in sage reflection. At a tima when New Zealand dairy control is lying in ruins we, who feel entitled beyond many to speak after months, ot unsuccessful, pleading, will content ourselves with only those conclusions that may be helpful to those most severely hit by the crash—to wit, the dairy farmers of New Zealand. To these primary producers we appealed two years ago to open their eyes and. see.that monopolistic influences were, for. selfish reasons, dragging them into a com. biaation which could only benefit th» monopolists themselves. We "fought what we regarded as the unhealthy elements in this caravanserai. and suffered for our pains. We will not squeal. ' The hundreds we lost wUI be matched by the millions which a great producing industry will drop in one of ou» Dominions overseas. : It is a rude awakening, and: the only possible ray of "sunshine, it would scf, is the warning it may give.others not to pursue the phaatorn of restricted marketing. A PERSONAL KOTE. '. "When the besom iof aroused publifl feeling has swept the offenders from the false; position in which they were elevatad by an unheeding industry, then will come the time for repair and recuperation. New Zealanders, we f eeL will recognise in due time the debt they owe to those one or two members of their Control Board who had the sagacity to see the rocks to which theririn of control was heading/and, likewise, had the courage to give counsel that i for the time being was unpopular with those they represented. It has not beea difficult to see how uneasy tha New /Sealand. Government itself has been at the impasse into which powerful' trade interests in the Dominion dragged* great national industry. Judgment will have to be meted out where judgment is due, and one thing that-it is practically certain that producers will agree upon is'that it is necessary to. have as trading representatives in Great Britain only those who can inspire in their business dealings the goodwill- whicli Has been so dangerously near to total extinction m the regime now proved: a failure." _„;•• • i ead*s? man in the daify product industry thus describes what has beea Happening:—• ■ "During the time that New Zealandbutter and cheese have been under control, the consignments from other countries have had the advantage of New Zealand control prices. Their dairy products have been sold at.prices based to some extent on the prices beiagmade for New Zealand produce; with the advantageous result that such butters as those of Argentina and Australia-have all been cleared at good prices, and the New Zealand butter has simply piled un until we have got some hundreds of thousands of boxes to deal with. The same thing, in degree, applies to cheese. . The danger to-day; is (that if the Sa'» °f^acouniulations be forced, prices wiU fall so low before the stocks can be cleared that producers will be inclinI ed to blame the. allottees, instead ©♦ [blaming the Control Board, which is responsible for the excessive collection of stocks. At last the economic law of supply and demand has operated, and m a state of desperation the board hasturned to the Tooley street 'importers and asked them Tor, their aid and cooperation to lift it out of ite difficiilties, bearing in mind that the importers finance is at stake in all these transactions,,and that present indications are that heavy reclamations, will worki 6 res«!t of the present .year*. A PEEDICTIOK. "I predict that in twelve months* time the suppliers in New Zealand will have scrapped the Control Board. At any rate, they will demand a fre.e market to sell or consign their goods how and^when they like. Possibly the board might continue to have liberty to sell c.i.f., and so on,' bnt it would "bo practically dead. The board can only exist in the real sense so long as it controls prices. In any other capacity it would be a name, and nothing more. • Since control came into active operation, pro* ducers have been losing all the time. h- This i'.nng means, possibly, the | bankruptcy of, hundreds, if not thousands, of dairy farmers in • New Zealand. It means the closing up of faetones, unless- someone is willing to-fin-ance them so as to keep them going. One of the most awkward things is that New Zealand is.a young country, and has taken over thirty years to introduce its dairy produce to this country, and its strict attention to quality has made a name and goodwill in its dairy produce. This has been absolutely shattered during the last four months,-and will now require to be again pulled up. It will take time, according to how ' the board carries on." : . • - '

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