RABBIT MENACE

Gisborne Herald, Volume LXXV, Issue 22624, 29 April 1948, Page 3

RABBIT MENACE

CONTROL OF SKINS “FARMING” ALLEGATION BOARDS TAKE ACTION (P.A.) PALMERSTON N.. April 29. The rabbit industry is a serious menace to the farmer today and until we can set rid of its grip we cannot free ourselves of the rabbit nuisance. Today the farmer has become the servant of industry. He cannot exist, with rabbits, and industry cannot live without them. With these words Mr. J. Campbell (Hawke's Bay) attacked the present system of selling rabbits at the annual conference of the North Island Rabbit Boards' Association. "The Industry is an organisation known as the New Zealand Rabbiters' Union," he said. “Those who control the union are on the box seat because they can, and do, dictate when and how we are to kill our rabbits. They demand the skins in addition to their ordinary wages, and when their weekly earnings get below £2O they move on to another area but leave behind them enough rabbits to make sure they will have something to come back to. They adopt a go-slow policy in the summer so they will have a regular job during the winter.

"Until the rabbit is relegated to the status of a pest we will always have it with us," said Mr. Campbell. He moved that the Rabbit Destruction Council be requested to consider the devaluation of rabbit skins in the North Island as from January 1, 1949. Mr. C. A. Williams (Waipa-Ngaru-roro), the North Island Rabbit Boards' Association representative on the New Zealand Rabbit Destruction Council, said he did not think much progress would be made with the proposal. If the remit was carried rabbiters would leave areas where devaluation per tained.

The boards of the South Island were better organised. Eash district formed a council of boards and the problems of member boards were discussed. Such had been their working that no rabbiter was permitted to take the skins on his own behalf. In place of the value of the skins the boards paid rabbiters a bounty. It had been found that the system worked well. If the present motion was carried skins would merely be sent to another area for sale where devaluation did not apply. The crux of the success ot rabbiting depended on the disposal of the skins. He moved an amendment that the sale of skins be vested in rabbit boards, and that only rabbit boards be licensed to sell skins. The amendment was carried.