A DIVIDED HOUSE

Evening Post, Volume CXIII, Issue 124, 30 May 1927, Page 8

A DIVIDED HOUSE

Nothing is likely to be more efficacious in dividing the Dairy Produce Board and dairy farmers than Mr. Goodfellow's statement on and attitude towards absolute control of exports. That statement showed that the Control has been wounded in .the house of its friends. It was based on first-hand information gained by Mr. GoodfeUow in a fifteen-days' investigation in London of the whole; position. He said there was no loss of goodwill of the British provision trade, no boycott^of New Zealand dairy products, no justification whatever for any change of policy on the 1 part of the Board, which, by its turning back in time of trouble, has made itself " the laughing-stock of Tooley Street." But it was too late to do anything in the matter of price-fix-ing, which it was now hopeless to reestablish; and pooling must be abolishe_d, for it was losing the producer to Id per pound on his goods. But an impartial reading of Mr. Goodfellow's statement leads to no other conclusion than that it is a mere smoke-screen, especially that part of it charging political parties with responsibility for the trouble in which the dairy farmer finds himself to-day. It was not political, but the stern pressure of events arising from an unsound policy that influenced a two-thirds majority of the Board to abolish price-fixing and get rid of its .great stocks of butter at therate of 90,000 boxes a > week/ Mr. GoodfeUow was one of the staunchest advocates of control from the beginning. Now that it has been tried and found wanting, he says he is quite prepared to accept a full measure of blame for its failure under conditions outlined.. For his part he favours group marketing. That is his affair. But it is the business of dairy farmers through their ballot to, if possible, insure them.; selves against a repetition of the control fiasco. The Board has much to do regarding insurance, freights, and shipping, but its electors must through their ballot see to it that the Board's action is controlled by sound business principles rather than influenced by unwise, academic experiments.