DAIRY FACTORIES.

Greymouth Evening Star, 25 July 1936, Page 2

DAIRY FACTORIES.

[TO THE EDITOR.] Sir,—ln the “Star” on July 17, I read a description of the meeting called fox* the amalgamation of the dairy factories on the Coast. I attended a meeting at Rotomanu upon the same subject, and one speaker stated that if any farmer refused to come into the scheme, they should ask for Government intervention to compel them to do so.

Sir, if it was not so tragic, the setting would be admirable for a comic opera. The dairy farmers are always chasing shadows instead of concentrating their energies on the substance. The position of the dairy farmers has been very difficult the past five years, and opportunity was seized upon to impose conditions which I am sure no other organisation would agree to. Take the following: (1) Freedom of contract which came in for the most severe indictment by Sir Michael Myers, K.C.; (2) they have had 'tjo employ theii’ wives and kiddies, denying the kiddies even an elementary education: (3) the selling price of theii’ commodity was fixed by their employees, the manager and secretaries; (4) they paid over £77.000 a year to a Control Board which did nothing. Note the cost of the Board equalled the total pay-out of four factories on the Coast.

At the Golden Coast meeting I pointed out that they had nine men engaged in the factory and approximately 160 suppliers, and on the average there would be two men engaged on each farm, making altogether 320 employed in the production of butter-fat, and the statement showed that out of every ten pounds of butter manufactured, the 320 took six pounds and foui* pounds went to the nine which had no capital to find, while the 160 farmers had to find the labour, land, stock, and machinery, and their share was six pounds. Again, according to the Grey County Council, 75 per cent, of the dairy farmers are carrying the whole of the rates. When I had the pleasure of going as a deputation to ask for a reduction, a letter was sent to the Press, that in Rotomanu, they did not wish for a reduction, so why worry about spending a few pounds in overlapping of cream cartage. I think that Mr. T. Topliss, of the Overland Dairy Co., was very good, but I do not agree with his statement that the dairy farmer ought to work 10 or 11 months. We are all engaged in reduction in hours and to have a guaranteed salary for labour. Well. I believe that if the dairy farmer went in for the lactation period of four months, he would then have leisure like every other citizen. And also by reducing the output we should then have a profit on the commodity produced.

We have not heard any dissent by the farmers on the points just touched upon. Yet they waste all their energy upon something that doesn’t count, except in the imagination. No definite statement can he shown that we should have reduction in costs. We have the evidence of the Arahura factory with the least output, yet paying the highest pFice on the Coast. I believe that if a small factory was greeted in the Rotomanu Valley, central frojn Poerua, Inchbonnie, and Rotomanu, that the factory could be more economical than the centralised co-operative idea. Thanking you, yours etc., H. HASKELL.