DAIRY BOARD ELECTION

Hawera Star, Volume LII, 5 September 1932, Page 6

DAIRY BOARD ELECTION

CANDIDATE FOR WARD S MR H. C. BURNETT AT NORMANBY SURVEY OF. BOARD’S AFFAIRS. At a meeting of dairy suppliers held at Normanby on Saturday night, Mr C ! . H. Burnett, a Dairy Board candidate for Ward 5, made a critical survey of the affairs of the board and the necessity for new blood being returned. The revenue of the board, said Mr Burnett, approximates £40,000 per annum under the existing levy on the export and constituted the fund provided by the legislature to be expended by the board to the best advantage in disposing of the produce abroad. Section 16 of the Act says: “Generally for -all such matters as are necessary for the due discharge of itj functions in handling and distributing New Zealand dairy produce.” The official papers further say: “The Dairy Bo'ard is to control the export of butter and cheese in the interests of producers and to aid the marketing of the export on-side the Dominion.” “In view of these very definite obligations,” said the speaker, “1 ask iby what authority the board expended nearly £30,000, pr nearly three-quarters of its income, in the Dominion last year?” Further, the, board had invested reserves in 1926 totalling £67,905, andi had expended these reserves at the average rate of £IO,OOO per annum, leaving a sum of £6247 for the new board to carry on with in the forthcoming year. In these circumstances the board was either faced with drastic economy or an increase in tlio levy if the board were to proceed as in the past. Mr lorns (chairman of the board), "speaking in Palmerston North, and! reported in the “Dominion” on Friday, said that the £53,000 expended last year •was mostly non-recurring. His answer to Mr lorns, said Mr Burnett, was that in such a large export business as that under review—and always provided the moneys were expended in the proper direction —the expenditure necessarily must be ever recurring, and the producers were entitled to know what the non-recurring items were before any further levy was struck.

“The principal items- in the expenditure, and to which I take exception,” said Mr Burnett, “include a payment last year of some £3257 to the ‘Exporter’ newspaper. The ‘Exporter’ is certainly a very good publication, but the aggregate sum of over £20,000 paid the ‘Exporter’ in the past .seven years should properly and could certainly more profitably have been expended overseas. A sum of nearly £4OOO was paid the ‘Exporter’ in the year ending July, 1931. “The Massey College grant of some £4OOO per annum,” continued Mr Burnett, “may be held to- be in the interests of the export trade, hut strictly this grant does not assist in the sale and disposal of the export. With regard to the vote of £6OOO made to the Herd Testing Federation, I take the view that herd testing is a matter entirely for the Agricultural Department. benefiting all dairy herds, and should not be made a charge on a levy based on the export. If the hoard proposes to embark on matters; of a local and domestic nature —and no doubt quite merited—then the levy must he based on the manufactured butter-fat and not on the exported output. “A great deal more requires to be done,” said: Mr Burnett, “in regard to advertising. The film offers: one of the most effective and probably one of the most inexpensive methods of advertising The board has expended very limited sums in this connection, and the fact that the assets of the board only indicate film to the value of £5 in Britain is certainly, to say the least, difficult to understand. A good, well-designed and descriptive film of all our best dairy farms, pedigree herds, factories, stores, shipping, etc., should he prepared and -screened to the best advantage abroad. The revenues of the board are limited to the levy, but they must not be limited at the expense of publicity.” Touching on further markets, neither Mr lorns nor Mr Corrigan had any message or policy for new markets. This, said the speaker, must necessarily he disappointing to producers. Australia had explored valuable outlets in the East. The proposals of the hoard to make overtures to a Japanese shipping company which had a vessel expected in Auckland shortly were of interest, although somewhat belated. Mr Burnett referred to Mr Corrigan’s statement that head office cost suppliers 2s 2)d each in AVard 5. Including the members of the board, head office in the Dominion cost the levy nearly £IO,OOO, or a quarter of the annual levy, and a sum quite disproportionate to the income and quite beyond the circumstances of the producers under existing conditions. Mr Corrigan had no proposals in regard to the excessive cost of the administration, and excepting certain reductions in insurances and freights, which largely come within departmental duties, very little to tell the producers • about the expenditure of £270,763 on administration; £110,197 had been.expended on advertising since the board came into existence.

The mode of elections of producers’ representatives, said Air required urgent amendment. In the first 18 months of the board’s existence meetings of producers- and elections cost the levy £2734, while the members of the board drew £8679 7s 9d over the same period. It behoved the hoard to evolve some more effective and certainly less expensive method of elections and take steps to have the Act amended without delay.

Concluding, Air Burnett said that the matter was now with the suppliers to isay whether they would endorse the existing policy or return new blood pledged to economy, consistent with a businesslike and progressive policy, in the interests of the producers. Mr Burnett also deal with the question of the indiscriminate exportation of white pine and commended the matter to the early attention of the board as one of extreme urgency and importance to the industry

ME. CORRIGAN ’ S CANDIDATURE

Air J. It. Corrigan, sitting member for Ward 5, who announced his candidature for re-election to the Dairy 'Board by advertisement on Saturday, is one of the original committee which established the Dairy Board and has 'been a member for the past six years. 'Air Corrigan is one of the largest but-ter-fat suppliers in New Zealand and well-known figure in. the industry, being a breeder of stock on. a big scale and a director of several enterprises directly or indirectly related to the industry. He is chairman of directors of the Hawera Co-operative Dairy Company, chairman of the West Coast Refrigerating Company, chairman of the Egmont Box Company, member of

the exeetuives' of the Dairy Industry 'Employers’ Union and the Taranaki Federation of Co-operative Dairy Companies, and a director of the New Zealand Rennet Company,