VALUE IN DEER HIDES

Evening Post, Volume CXIV, Issue 18, 21 July 1932, Page 10

VALUE IN DEER HIDES

(To the Editor.)

Sir--Your sub-leader of the 29th June gives the Internal Affairs Department credit for being the pioneer in marketing deer hides. Long before the war Otago deer-cullers were sending consignments of deer hides to tanners in New Zealand for shipment abroad to be experimented with for commercial use. The deer-cullers received no payment whatever for _ these hides. Tanners spent sears experimenting with the hides to bring them to a state of commercial use, and were rewarded with success even in New Zealand, making boots, bags, gloves, etc., long before the Internal Affairs Department commenced culling operations. It is to the deer-cullers and tanners, bpth abroad and in > New Zealand, that- credit is due, and not to the Internal Affairs Department. By paying a bonus of Is 4d per pound for hides (and "take what we like to give for the balance") the Department is of the opinion that large consignments of skins will in future be coming to hand nnd that a greater number of deer will be. shot. The Department overlooks the fact that it has already shot the easy country and driven the deer into the -back country. Who is going to shoot these deer in the back country when tHere is n bonus on the tails, and. when hides cannot' be carried out? ,Perhap» this ia where the Department: wU have its annual flutter. The1 deer-cUller is'the man who will be doing the donkey work; Will he be getting the lion'*'share of the proceeds of the■■* bale' of the{ hides?: Why not throw the - market, open to the deer-cullers? It is not usual for a Government.Department.'to corner a market as is at™ present being don* by the Internal Affairs Department.—l am, *"' 270. ' Havea Flat, Otago Central, 15th July. [Apparently the correspondent refers to a subleader of 27th June. If he looks at it again he will see that pioneering is not either mentioned or implied. If the Department has claimed pioneering credit, that point has escaped us. The main point is not the past, but tho. future. Will deer-skins and other deer products make deer-taking profitable? The claim that the Department, by, offering a bonus, corners the market, requires ' further elucidation.—Ed.]