DAIRY INDUSTRY CRISIS

Evening Post, Volume CXVIII, Issue 102, 27 October 1934, Page 8

DAIRY INDUSTRY CRISIS

(To the Editor.)

Sir, —I venture to say that the report of the Dairy Commission will not meet with the approval of a large majority of dairy farmers. The wording of the report to the effect that the grave national crisis in the dairy industry will have immediate prejudicial effects upon the farming industry concerned and early prejudicial effects upon the rest of the community is undoubtedly true. While benevolent sentiments such as "general welfare," "national interests," etc., are given expression to, behind all this lurks the dragon of sectional interests. It is amazing tr find recommendations being put forward purporting to be for the good of tho industry as a whole and parallel recommendations aimed at depriving 33,000 suppliers to dairy factories of any say in the administration of the industry. The recommendation of tho. Commission that four members bo apopintcd by the Government to the Dairy Control Board while four more are to be elected by vote of factory directors and not by vote of individual suppliers moans tho disfranchisement of nearly 70,000 dairy farmers. The Commission states that 33,000 factory suppliers own fewer than ten cows and cannot therefore bo regarded as dairy farmers in the accepted sense of tho term, and that these have only a casual interest in the administration of the industry. I claim that these 33,000 dairy factory suppliers have more interest in the administration of the industry than several of tho members of the Commission who recommended their disfranchisement and brought down proposals for a system of election to the Dairy Control Board having for its objective the Assumption of control by such persons as will carry out a policy designed to further the interests of ihnse with large capital investments in tho dairy industry at the expense of its renl backbone, the working farmers. —I inn, etc., \V. O'EEILLY. Joliiisonville, October 24,