DAIRY FACTORY SUPPLY BOUNDARIES.

Hawera Star, Volume L, 26 July 1930, Page 4

DAIRY FACTORY SUPPLY BOUNDARIES.

It is to be hoped that advantage will be taken of the presence of delegates to the Taranaki Dairy Federation at Monday's conference on the cheese pool ) proposal, to obtain a decision regarding “definition of boundaries.” For many years it has been known that one of the influences holding back co-oper-ative dairy enterprise • from the full realisation of its ideals has been the fear on the part of individual factories of losing suppliers. Various suggestions have been made for overcoming this evil influence—for evil it is, working to the decided disadvantage of the industry as a whole—-but none has been so practicable and so easy of adoption as that suggested at the last conference of the Federation held in Hawera. Instead of advocating “definition of, boundaries,” and seeking the aid of a statutory law (which that proposal would entail), it has been suggested that all factory directorates within the federation should come to a “gentlemen’s agreement” on the point. This plan is so feasible and so easy to operate that it is a wonder that it was not thought of long ago. It is a simple matter for each directorate affiliated j with the Federation to undertake not to accept milk from another factory’s suppliers (]uring the currency of a season. By that means every factory would be sufficiently well-armed against threats of desertion or boycott to introduce such reforms as were known to be in the interests of the majority. If, of course, sufficient mutual trust does not exist between the directorates to warrant them placing their whole confidence in such an agreement, the plan is valueless—and eo-operiatiofii isi a mvth. 1