DAIRY CONTROL POLICY

Evening Post, Volume CXIII, Issue 125, 31 May 1927, Page 10

DAIRY CONTROL POLICY

ME. GOODFELLOW'S VOLTE FACE AT STOOL OF REPENTANCE (Contributed.) Although he had unburdened himself at the monthly meeting of the Dairy Board two or three days before, and had entrusted his confidence to quite a number of personal friends, it was not until Saturday that many interested people learned that Mr. William Goodfellow, the biggest figure in the dairy industry of the Dominion to-day, had returned from his flying visit to London satisfied that "absolute control has gone," ' that "it is absolutely hdpcless to. think of . reestablishing price-fix-ing, and that "the only way of securing the best prices for the producers is by the formation of group export marketing companies.'' In' order to reconcile these revised views of the dairying situation' with his former insistence upon absolute control, pricefixing, and the extinction ox free marketing, Mr. Goodfellow finds is necessary . to occupy four columns of solid newspaper print in explaining why his carefully-prepared designs have gone astray, and why he is now prepared to concede almost everything to his for-1 mer opponents. It cannt tbe said with truth that his four columns of print add much to his reputation as a controversialist. His, it would seem, is the case of the lawyer with a bad case seeking to extricate his client from an unhappy position by . abusing the other side. Two or three extracts from his lengthy pronouncement will ahow to -what this expedient is employed. They by no means exhaust the list, but they are typical of several others. THE IMPEACHMENT. I soon found, Mr. Goodfellow writes, that the stock position was absolutely sound, in fact, better than it had been for years, and I was therefore forced to the conclusion that the Dairy Board had been stampeded by pressure being applied upon certain members by the Dairy Board. Further inquiries also made it apparent to mo that the pressure had x eome directly or, indirectly from a small group of Wellington exporters, assisted by that useful medium :Cor propaganda, the Free Marketing ■ League. . . . The alarmist state-1 ments of the free-marketers when j analysed proved to be a complete mare's nest. New Zealand farmers i had been told by coloured commercial cablegrams and inspired anonymous Press messages that there were huge accumulations of dairy produce in London; that New Zealand dairy produce was being boycotted by the merchants of England, and, further, that the New Zealand factories had lost the goodwill of the trade. Undoubtedly this propaganda was directly responsible for the board's rash act in throwing up the sponge, an act which will cost the country a ; huge sum of money, but an act by which admittedly a small group of New Zealand exporters will hereafter benefit very considerably financially. . .' . It was because they (certain London distributors) realised that the Dairy Board's schemo was logical, scientific, and efficient, . and would ultimately reveal their own inefficiency, that the group cooperated .with the interested New Zealand exporters in the propaganda aiming at misleading tho producers.

AN EMPTY INVENTION. No graver indictment than the ono levelled by Mr. Goodfellow against "certain members of the Dairy Boarcl," "a ' small group of Wellington exporters" and the newspapers of' tho Dominion could be framed. Had it been directed against an individual its validity could not have gone unchallenged in a Court of Law. Yet in his whole four columns of print Mr. Goodfellow docs not advance one tittle of evidence in support of his allegations. He tolls of the leading buyer of tho largest I multiple shop organisation laughing at the idea of New Zealand butter being boycotted on account of price-fixing; of a recognised butter expert declaring at the time New Zealand butter was selling at 154s that the price should have been from 165s to 170s; of one of the largest merchant importers volunteering the opinion that had the Dairy Board's scheme been properly supported by the producers in New Zealand there was no doubt in his mind that tho Control Board's policy would have been a success.' * And so on and so on, without in a single instance the slightest indication of the name or the standing of the individual who, in courtesy or in conviction, was prepared to say what M,r. Goodfellow wanted him to say. On the other hand, the Hon. J. G. Coates, tho Prime Minister of the Dominion, to quote only one of tho many reliable witnesses on the other side, after the cloest investigation of the facts on the spot, gavo it as his opinion that the continuance of pricefixing would be attended by disastrous results.

BLAME AND REPENTANCE. Having regard to his present attitude towards absolute control and price-fixing it is more than a littlo'difficult to believe that Mr. Goodfellow really regrets what has happened. If he ever honestly thought these panaceas for the various ills from which he told the producers they were suffering would be effective, surely he would not have renounced them simply because "a small group of Wellington exporters,'' *f assisted by a useful medium of propaganda," had raised their voice in protest. Curiously enough after denouncing tha exporters for having wrecked the policy of "compulsion," Mr. Goodfellow proceeds to lay the blame for this catastrophe upon the shoulders of a number of other people, quite, impartially. The scheme of absolute control has been. wrecked by dissensions within ' the industry and by farmers them- , selves, he says. ... If Parliament had granted legislation to the producers along the lines originally asked for, then the desired stability

would have been maintained and the control system would have proved a success. . . : The wrong men were on the Dairy Board because of the method of election. . . . Eesponsibility for this must rest largely with the Labour Party and the Liberal Party in their demand for the democratic principle of one man one vote.

Finally, in a spasm of candour and chivalry, Mr. Goodfellow proclaims that he is "quite prepared to accept personally a full measure of, blame for the failure of the absolute control policy under the conditions and circumstances outlined." This is as it should bo. Had the Dairy Board been content to follow the policy Mr. Massey expected it to follow, in all probability it 'would have encountered little adverse criticism and done much for the producers and their industry. Is it too late, while Mr. Goodfellow still is at the stool of repentance, for the board to retrace its steps and apply itself to .the good work for which it was designed?