The Evening Star FRIDAY, APRIL 1, 1927. DAIRY FARMER AND BOARD.

Evening Star, Issue 19522, 1 April 1927, Page 4

The Evening Star FRIDAY, APRIL 1, 1927. DAIRY FARMER AND BOARD.

At yesterday’s meeting of Otago dairy farmers and factory directors to consider the Control Board’s conduct of business the chairman referred to the difficulty of getting a pronouncement of the real opinion of dairy farmers. Mr Toomey said that there had been throughout the dominion expression of various opinions from different bodies and organisations purporting to be the .considered opinions of the dairy farmers, whereas those who passed the resolutions did not in the least represent the dairy farmers, but were in the main people who made a living off the dairy farmer. Why is it that the dairy farmer is thus tongue-tied or inarticulate P The presumption is that he is too much occupied with a daily routine, seven days a week much of it, to be able to give a considered opinion on a subject of most‘vital importance to his pocket. At yesterday’s meeting, for example, only fifteen persons responded to the invitation to assemble, which must be regarded as extremely poor representation of this industry on such a subject at such a time of crisis. The explanation was in part that the notice was insufficient, and in part that farmers are at present leading in their crops. As to this latter excuse it might be thought at first sight that it would hardly weigh against the importance of the meeting in Dunedin; but it may he that farmers who have been so hard hit by the decreased returns from butter and cheese this season as compared with last, and who, moreover, from Oamaru southwards, are getting disappointing yields, at any rate of wheat, feel that they simply cannot leave their work to attend meetings. Perhaps, also, the farmer, understanding that he has entrusted the marketing of a very important class of his produce to farmers of intelligence, thereby eliminating the middleman, thinks that therefore'there can be nothing wrong. But, as against that, what is one to make of Mr Toomey’s statement that those who have been attending meetings elsewhere in such large numbers comprise not the dairy farmers, hut the men who make their living off the dairy farmers? Those who attend the meetings can safely be assumed to consist of those who constitute the electorates for the choice of the Control Board. Is the Control Board, then, put into power by parasites on the dairy farmer? Has one set of “parasites” simply replaced another set in the handling and marketing of dairy produce, with somewhat disastrous results to the producer? It looks as though the man on the land had replaced King Log by King Stork. If there is anything in Mr Toomey’s contention, it is high time the legislation dealing with the constitution as well as with the powers of the board was radically overhauled. The raison d’etre of that legislation was to give the farmer control over the marketing of his produce. If it has not given him that control it is a fraud.

There is, of course, another question arising out of the above: Is the farmer capable of advantageously exercising control over the marketing of his produce in another country? Past experience, quite apart from what has happened in connection with dairy produce, says No emphatically. The farmer’s concern is production, and, if he essays also to enter so deeply into the business world as the performance of the middlemen’s functions necessitates, his occupation becomes a hybrid one. During a discussion this week on the wheat grower’s holding back of his harvest in the hope of securing better prices—fictitious prices when the trend of the world market is examined—through possible political action, the information was given us by an unassailable authority that nowadays the farmer is a speculator. Possibly that is why there are complaints of production going back and of production at a loss. It ail tends to bring home the truth of the old proverb, “ Cobbler, stick to thy last.” Not only New Zealand, but many other countries, are learning that the middleman is necessary to trade, and that he performs among other things the very essential function of equalising the distribution of seasonal production, buying and storing at one time and selling at other times in accordance with consumptive requirements, thus obviating or modifying both gluts and scarcities. The Dairy Produce Export Control Board has essayed to do this, and has proved 'a very poor substitute indeed for the middleman. But it is no great exception to the rule. Most of the producers’ pools in food-exporting countries have been failures. The success of the New Zealand Meat Board has often been referred to, but some of the glamor needs stripping from that body’s record. Outside opinions help to do this. In the course of a controversy in the London Kress Mr J. J. Terrett writes: “ All this summer we have been clearing New Zealand stocks at Smithfield, at greatly reduced prices, which have been held for twelve months in tho Antipodes. While such instruments as the New Zealand Meat Board are effective in times of shortage, they are very clumsy and costly weapons in times of plenty. The New Zealand farmers are just finding this out. It is no good my opponent in this controversy visiting Adelaide House (the headquarters in London of tho New Zealand Dairy PrMuco Control Board); he should go to Tooley Street. There he will learn how the energetic Danes skimmed the cream off the butter market, while the poor farmers down below were listening to their ill-informed politicians.” Along with tho “ill-informed politicians” as the New Zealand dairy farmer’s fount of wisdom and information must be counted the ‘New Zealand Dairy Produce Exporter and Farm Home Journal.’ A few days ago Mr Grounds, chairman of tho board, exultingly declared that dairy farmers would not be misled by the recent disclosures made and severe criticism being levelled against the board, because they were all kept constantly informed of the real truth of the matter per medium of the ‘Exporter.’ Wo understand that no expense is spared to see that this journal enters the homes of dairy farmers throughout Now Zealand. It is the mouthpiece of the board, and it constitutes a means of propaganda of which the board takes the fullest adI vantage. If it could be regarded as a humorous production the position would not, he so bad, but +bo-« responsible for the publication we evidently d««per-

ately in earnest, and presumably a largo proportion of its interested readers accept its contents in all good faith. But to the outsider there is food for ridicule as well as for sorrow in such statements as that with which the last issue (March 26) opens- “Early in the month there was launched a sustained campaign of Press and commercial propaganda against the functioning of the board’s policy in London. in brief, the allegations were that sales were not proceeding adequately and that stocks were piling up unduly, the reason for this being allegedly that prices had been kept above sales’ point and that traders were deliberately boycotting Now Zealand produce. A ‘ prominent market authority’ on March 9 caused to be despatched to New Zealand a long half-column of semi-politi-cal propaganda, Tho whole composition and tenor of this was wicked.” But were not these allegations true, ,and is it wicked to state tho truth? In the self-same article in tho ‘ Exporter ’ there occurs a later passage admitting indirectly tha f . the wicked allegations it complained of were the truth: “All that was hoped for ms not hem gained; having regard to tho forces arrayed against producers, and tho restrictions placed by political and commercial circumstances upon tho organisation and equipment necessary to fight those forces, it would have been amazing had victory been secured at tho first effort.” Wo do not follow the logic of a combatant who in one breath announces his victory, due to his superior strategy al position, and in the next breath excuses his defeat on tho grounds that his adversary took up a superior strategical position—which ought not to be allowed by tho rules! It is a familiar phenomenon that people obsessed by an idea are often oblivious to tho. fact that they make themselves slightly ridiculous in their defence of it. They are so desperately in earnest that levity in others becomes as heinous an offence as sacrilege or blasphemy. But surely the onlooker may be allowed to get a laugh out of the board and its organ, the ‘Exporter,’ although to those financially interested in the industry there cannot but he a hitter flavor behind tho laugh.