Municipal Milk.

Evening Star, Issue 17923, 20 March 1922, Page 4

Municipal Milk.

For over three years tho Wellington City Corporation lias been experimenting in tho imrnicipalisation of the milk supply. It has, of course, not gone tho length of establishing municipal dairy farmo, but it purchases direct from the suppliers all the milk sent into tho city for domestic use. This milk, after weighing, testing, and pasteurisation at the council's contra I station, is then doled out to the various vendors, who contract with tho corporation for the house-to-house distribution of the milk in tho varioiv 'blocks into which the city and suburb have been divided by the council. S far tho City Corporation has thus bee acting merely as a middleman, but of paternal and not a predatory kind. > intervention between producer and u".

mate distributor has been primarily 1. ; the interests of health, and secondarily for the protection of the consumer's pocket. That intervention lias evidently not been completely successful. The environs of Wellington do not include much dairying country, and practically all the milk comes some distance by train from several points of the compass. Systematic inspection of dairies by municipal officers —the only real way to ensure sanitary conditions from milking shed to despatch by train —would be impracticable except at great expense. It has been found that the conditions on the farms, and consequently the purity of tho milk, vary greatly, and it has been proposed to put a premium on cleanliness by offering a bonua to the suppliers of the purest milk. One would imagine that the consumer would much prefes to Be© the dirty dairyman penalised, for complaints havo long been rife that the price of milk in Wellington is already fair too high and out of proportion to that paid by factories for milk for 'butter and cheese manufacture. However, it may bo assumed that 'the central depot system, with, itp'fe»ta

and pasteurisation, does ensure a certain improvement in tho standard of cleanliness, and that the. distribution system. with its system' of division into Modes and tho consequent prevention of overlapping, does in somo measure reduce tho i much-talked-of eost of distribution, particularly formidable in such "difficult country" as Wellington. But tho existing system is not proving i workable. Householders in somo cases complain of systematic short measure on tho part of tho vendors. Tho latter complain of not getting a fair deal from tho council, the council declares that tho vendors have not been playing tho game, and tho friction between tho two has reached such a point that no tenders have been received for distribution of the milk after tho expiry of the existing contracts in July, -until which date tho vendors have declared that they will cany on out of consideration for tho public. Tho Wellington City Council consequently despatched Mr Ward, manager of its municipal milk undertaking, to America, to see how such matters are managed there. As a result of his investigations the council decided last week to take over itself tho distribution of milk. The sealed bottle system will bo adopted, as a guarantee both of non-contamination and of full measure. To evade certain unpleasant features of tho credit system, by which the milkman is proverbially tho victim of tiie unprincipled customer, tho coupon system will bo tho mode of payment. Tho introduction of these two methods is estimated to require a capital sum of £12,600, tho purchase of delivery carts and horses another £6,000, and the necessary alterations to buildings £3,000, making a total of £21,600. This, coming on top of £52,000 bora-owed to start the nranicipal milk scheme, has evoked somo criticism as to whether purity is'not being secured at too high a cost. Tho prospect which seems to face the Wellington consumer, who already pays moro than ho thinks he should for his milk, is a period of still dearer milk. How long that period lasts will be the real test of'municipal monopoly in this newest extension ci corporation trading. The experiment will be well worth watching by other municipalities, and will only be worth emulating when the Wellington Council can prove its system of delivery so economical that it can provide cheap as well as puro milk. In the matter of a milk supply Dunedin appears to be much more fortunate than Wellington. Sources of supply are nearer at hand, and recently competition among suppliers has caused a reduction in prices which consumers have greatly appreciated, though it remains to be seen how far into tho winter tho lowered prices will continue. There Is just a suspicion, howover, that the standard of purity may not be benefited if the price-cutting goe3 "to the last ditch." The conscientious dairyman, who pricks himself on rigorous attention to the hygienic requirements of his calling, is placed at a disadvantage as compared with a competitor who can undersell him because he is prepared to chance tho results of laxity. In these circumstances it would be interesting to the public to know exactly what a fair and reasonable .retail price for milk would bo. In tho winter months this is n. somewhat difficult matter to arrive at, for lack of one basis from which calculation might start—viz., the mice paid to suppliers by dairy factories for export. However, some other basis might bo found. It is interesting to note, as regards one of the subsequent additions that have to be made, that the chairman of the Wellington City Council's Milk Committee informed his colleagues last week that "careful estimates indicated that the maximum cost of distribution would be 4d or 4Jd per gallon"—say about Id per quart. It has, however, to be remembered that this figure applies only where the wasteful overlapping system, still in vogue here, has been eliminated.