DAIRY EXPORT FUTURE

Evening Post, Volume CXIII, Issue 139, 16 June 1927, Page 10

DAIRY EXPORT FUTURE

■ Mr. lorns, as a member of the Dairy Produce Export- Control Board, cleared the «ir vi a ctatement he made yesterday to the Board. Ho was one of the two members of that body appointed by it to watch its Interests in London. His conclusions are that the Board seriously blundered in its price-fixing policy, thereby' antagonising practically the whole provision trade of Great Britain, forfeiting its good-will, driving it to seek increased supplies from the Dominion's foreign competitors in tho British market—its best market. Then, the mischief having been done, some members of the Board severely criticised both the Prime Minister and the Government ro.presentativo on the Board in London, Mr. S. Paterson, because they both endeavoured to dissuade the Board from pursuit of a policy which seemed to them, and subsequently proved to be, destructive of New Zealand's good name in the provision market. It was unfortunate that, the election of three members of the Board being in progress, Mr. lorns's full statement of the position was not broadcasted among the dairy-farmer electors beffcrc to-day. However, tho result to-day is that not only is the disastrous policy of price-fixing definitely knocked on the head, but pooling is also abolished. The results of the election show that of the three members retiring and seeking re-election one was for withdrawal of price-fixing, one stood stoutly for its retention, and the third had approved it but recanted. The first two have been defeated; the third has been re-elected. It would appear that dairy-farmers themselves have realised, as Sir Archibald Boyd-Carpenter so aptly put it. to the Motor Trade yesterday, that "economic laws will rule the world so long as we are in it." Empirics of the kind that misled the Board in its trade with Great Britain have now been tried and found wanting.

Mr. Goodfellow, ( on his recent return from London, realised that "it is absolutely hopeless to think of re-establish-jing price-fixing." True, both he and Mr. lorns, his fellow-momber on the Board, widely differ on the subject of. the value of the good-will of the British provision trade, but the latter saw the storm looming up, and ho warned the Board accordingly, but in vain. When Mr. Goodfellow joined him in London the storm had burst, for he found that the Board had "fallen out with its friends and despised its enemies." "Absolute control (he said) had gone." All turned out as Mr. lorns warned the Board it would, as Mr. Paterson warned Board's official journal described as the the Board it would, and as what tho "daily Press, which is the pliant and unscrupulous implement of commercial pressure and vested interests," warned tho Board it would. Now tho pools are gone. The dairying industry has received a stunning blow, but it can recover, and it is tho business of the Board as at present constituted to speed up that recovery and get to the business of restoring , confidence by tho time the export season reopenß in August or September next. No ono denies that the Board has not done and can still do great service to tho industry, and effect substantial economies in tho handling, transport, and distribution of its produce. But it must free itself from the. enchantments into which it has beon misled and iv future look at economic facts as they are, not as one would like to fashion them.