The Evening Star THURSDAY, MAY 10, 1934. CITY MILK SUPPLY.

Evening Star, Issue 21716, 10 May 1934, Page 8

The Evening Star THURSDAY, MAY 10, 1934. CITY MILK SUPPLY.

It is with some trepidation that we observe the attitude of some city councillors towards control or regulation of Dunedin’s milk supply. At last night’s council meeting a report was presented by the General Committee advised by four outside experts. On that report we have no criticism to offer. It aims at ensuring purity of supply and better returns to the dairy farmer at very slightly increased cost to the consumer, from which we infer that it is believed that the retail distributor appropriates, an undue proportion of the proceeds of sale. That is highly probable, for (at any rate until quite recently, when Mr Walter Elliot intervened) it is notorious that too many milk distributing agencies in England bled both consumer and producer, and set an example which similar concerns in various parts of the English-speaking world have not been slow to follow. It is indeed doubtful whether even now the position in England so far as the very poor are concerned is as it should be. In the weekly budget of the wife of an unemployed man with three children we notice that in items totalling £1 9s OJd (leaving a 2£d balance out of the dole of £1 9s 3d) liquid milk figures at 9d, and three tins of condensed milk at 9cl, the explanation for the latter being that “ lots of people are using sweetened milk now as it is cheaper and needs very little sugar.” Nevertheless, the housewife admits that it is impossible to give the children all the milk they need, and it’ is incontestable that two quarts a week among three children is very short rations indeed. (It may be of interest to New Zealand haliers and their customers to learn that the price of bread at the time, March, was per new large loaf and 4d for a “ yesterday’s ” loaf at any baker’s.) The points on which we are exceedingly doubtful arose during the council’s discussion on the report. Cr Jones is evidently enamoured of the Wellington municipal milk supply system, and wishes to see Dunedin’s supply municipalised. He even went so far as to say that our people “ would never be satisfied till they had a municipal supply similar to that in Wellington.” What grounds he has for saying so we do not know. Milk is slightly clearer in Wellington than here, and we do not unreservedly accept Cr Munro’s affirmation that the milk delivered by the Wellington City Corporation is superior on an average to that supplied in any other part of New Zealand. It is superior to what used to exist prior to municipalisation seventeen years ago, but there was almost limitless room for improvement then. Conditions in Dunedin and Wellington are very different. The capital city draws its supplies from considerable distances involving long train transport. Dunedin is practically surrounded by dairying country close at hand. That this industry is expanding in the environs of this town can be seen from the areas continually being “ brought in ” on the slopes of Pine Hill and the Peninsula, and owing to the spread of top-dressing pastures with superphosphate the cow-carrying capacity of each acre has been increased to a degree really remarkable. Bulk transport, whether by horse vehicle or by motor lorry, is expeditions and relatively inexpensive. Where the cost of transport mounts up inordinately is in retail distribution, with its uneconomic

overlapping by rival vendors. Elimination of that overlapping is' the only point we know of that there is in favour of the argument for municipalisation. So close are sonic of the dairy farms to the town that a number of them would be affected by rating on the unimproved value system, if ever Dunedin were so foolish as to adopt it, as advocated by tho present mayor and some of the more “ radical ” councillors. And when wo say these dairy farms would be affected wc mean that they would bo wiped out, for they could not possibly' compete with farms paying the ordinary county rates. Our chief concern, however, is over the mention of pasteurisation iu tho discussion. That process has helped to bring our dairy produce export from its once high estate to its present crisis. Its effect is to destroy' the good bacteria as well as tho bad, and it can only be considered as a corrective for an unavoidable uncleanliness on the producers’ part. Its advocacy is merely a confession of past and present neglect to use tho powers already conferred on municipal authorities by Act of Parliament to ensure a high standard of purity as well as of butter-fat content. Cr MTndoc, who, as chairman of the General Committee, moved tho adoption of the report, virtually admitted that present quality leaves room for improvement, and Cr Jones’s figures as to tho results of the corporation’s sanitary inspector’s examinations corroborated this. It must be conceded that in his advocacy of pasteurisation Cr M'lndoe errs in rather distinguished company. Early last March ‘ The Times ’ xnihlished a letter, signed by three lords and two commoners, which stated : The supply of milk to growing children will receive strong support from the medical profession, but until purity at the source and during subsequent distribution can be guaranteed it is imperative in the public interest that all milk should by adequate pasteurisation he rendered safe from the risk of causing disease. The consensus of opinion among .medical and cognate scientific authorities is that milk in the raw state may, and frequently does, constitute a source of danger to the human population. Each year approximately 2,000 persons, many of them children, die from tuberculosis of bovine origin, and at least 4,000 fresh cases of this disease arc notified. There are also other diseases spread by milk. Among those may be mentioned septic sore throat and undulant fever, the latter of only recent appearance in this country, and causing concern. In districts where pasteurisation is impracticable, the milk should be boiled immediately before use.

Later in the month appeared a letter from the owner of a herd of pedigree Red Poll and Jersey cattle of H)6 head over the age of ten months, every animal of ■which, male and female, successfully passed the test for contagious abortion, which is the source of indulant fever. The whole of the 156 head of milking cows passed the test for tuberculosis except one bought in cow, which fortunately had been kept m isolation. This studmaster .rgued that farmers would never try io improve their herds if pasteurisation were advocated as rendering milk absolutely safe—quite a fallacy, as the tubercle bacillus has been found in pasteurised milk. In March, 1931, the ‘ Lancet ’ published tho results of experiments by the National Institute for Research in Dairying on the relative value of raw and heated milk in nutrition, summarising the results thus: — A fourth generation on this diet (raw milk and biscuit) at the time of writing is as healthy and normal as the previous generations. Sterilised milk fed under similar conditions failed to sustain life and reproduction bevoud the first generation, except on one occasion, when a second generation of very stunted animals was produced. Even the original rats (the first generation) failed in many instances to reach maturity. Preliminary experiments with pasteurised milk demonstrate results sufficiently marked to indicate that milk heated at a temperature ot 145-149 deg F. for half an hour has undergone changes which have considerably reduced its dietetic value. “This,” comments the dairy stud owner, “ is surely sufficient indication of the deficiencies of a diet of pasteurised milk or boiled milk, as the latter is practically the same as the sterilised milk referred to in the above summary. If the same people who have written the letter under review had written a few years ago encouraging the farmer to produce milk from cows which had passed the tuberculin and agglutination tests, and the general public to demand such milk, there would have been an enormous increase in the number of clean herds, whereas they are doing all they possibly can to deter the enthusiastic farmer from producing the right article.” His concluding statement, that “ calves cannot be reared on pasteurised milk,” ought to settle all argument.