Grey River Argus FRIDAY, March 22, 1935. HONEY CONTROL.

Grey River Argus, 22 March 1935, Page 4

Grey River Argus FRIDAY, March 22, 1935. HONEY CONTROL.

By questioning the efficiency of lie honey control policy we have drawn from those responsible'quite a shower of criticism. They rely far less on an attempt Io show success than on one to

show ignorance on our part. Naturally they should know most about the matter, but denials do prove control successful, even if they prove us wrong. The Board chairman says: “The Government did not contribute £6OOO towards redeeming the ‘lmperial Bee’ brand ” In his address 10 the 20;h annual conference of the National Beekeeper; Association in

August. 1933, at Wellington, the Chairman said: “The Board would have found it impossible to function had that brand been lost Io the industry. This matter was discussed before 1 left London. The brand was eventually purchased by the Board for £6000.” Later in the same ad-

dress he. said: “The Government has agreed to advance the Board £(>000 to pay in cash for the Imperial Bee brand.” Air Rutland ran have his choice of the statement he then made and the one he now makes. But. m any ease, where did the £6OOO go? He says: “West Coast honey was not ‘ruled out’ of the export trade.” Well, was any of it allowed to go at the last grading? We believe that the grader would have passed it as readily as he did for export at the previous grading, only that he had to take orders from Alp Butland and his colleagues, and that these directors ruled out the local honey, let any local producer say! The chairman says we were 2d per lb (except for packed honey) in excess of the actual price of New Zealand

honey at London in our version of retail prices there. Even so. do we not bring out the remarkable fact that on such honey the Board only advances the exporter lid per lb., and later about as much again. Who gets shilling’

The Board find ,40d per lb. the cheapest rate of transport, excluding transhipping charge, but we can quote an exporter who did land his honey in Britain at ;i farthing per lb. AVe did not say that 1200 tons or nearly as much was exported over any lengthy period, but that the export developed to about as much, and Air Butland admits it approached the figure six years ago. He does not state what the ex ports total now, but merely uses the expression “vide Department of Agriculture figures. ’’ The contrast would be too significant if those figures were quoted. He naturally denies any collapse in the industry, but could he deny that the exports have fallen off at least by half since the peak year aforementioned'.’ Air Butland makes a point with his statement that the manager* of N.Z. Honey, Limited, js not. a member of the Control Board, but he does not mention the very relevant fact that the manager of N.Z. Honey, Ltd. is one and the same person as the manager of the N.Z. Honey Control Board jpst as the same man was also the head of the Honey Producers’ Association which reached its climax in liquidation. The West Coast producers consider there is altogether too great, an interlocking of the same interests at the head of the marketing organisation of New Zealand honey, both without and within the Dominion. Has the Board chairman no association with the industry other than that position? It would be interesting to know if bis firm limits its honey trade solely to the produce of N.Z. Honey, Ltd., whose chairman today assures us its distributors are bound to handle no other honey. The way we regard main question is not. circumscrib-

ed by a West. Coast viewpoint. AV e should like to know whether the Board reckon that more importance attaches to the fate of its brand in Britain than to the fate of honey production in New Zealand. Surely the honey is more important than the brand? West Coast honey producers have been so convinced this brand is not worth saving from the burn-

ing that they have asked repeatedly to be allowed Io pit their own product against it on the

British market. The question is probably one of an acquired taste, but in any ease N.Z. Honey Ltd., is aware of the good qualities of Wi-st Coast honey to such a degree that it has either mixed it with other honey, or sold it independently. About twenty

months ago a movement was afoot in Auckland to have an inquiry instituted into the affairs of tiie Honey Control Board and the 11.1’. A. to ascertain whether they were operating in the best interests of the beekeepers throughout New Zealand, one reason being that out of eight thousand five hundred beekeepers in the country, the number

exporting money had fallen down to one hundred and fifty. Another reason was the conviction of Auckland beekeepers that the great discrepancy between the price paid to the New Zealand producers and the retail price in Britain, which, it was urged called for the most searching investigation. AVe believe the same conviction is shared to-day mor? widely than it then was among producers, and that it finds an echo even in London. It is easy for the Board Chairman to quote resolutions of bn r-hes of the Association, but "e believe th:r

these are not really representative of the 8500 beekeepers who were in the industry in 1933, and of whom not a few have since, more or less, had to drop out of the trade, The Board has gone past the day when it could rely on results of the mere paper variety. There are two solid things which it seems to imagine the beekeepers can be induced to forget. Those things are the quantity of sales and the quantity of returns therefrom. These represent the elements of the final analysis. As an acid test they are more than the present control s> stem is able to stand.