SEEDS BILL

Hawera & Normanby Star, Volume XLI, Issue XLI, 15 October 1921, Page 6

SEEDS BILL

OPPOSED BY FARMERS' UNION

EXECUTIVE,

At yesterday's meeting of the executive of the Taranaki Farmers' Union sorao time was spent in discussing the Seeds Bill. The chairman (Mr F. Mills), in explaining the provisions of the Bill, pointed out that the most important 1 provision was the one that will permit " a merchant to sell any lot of seed 1 which comprised not more than 20 per j cent of extraneous seeds, husks, dirt, ' or any other worthless matter. This seemed to him to be rather absurd. ( Even assuming that the percentage was I only rubbish, and not noxious weed! «eed, it was not much satisfaction to the purchaser. Passing on, the chair-' man said that the provisions of the Act relating to the sale of seeds would not apply to sale of any lot of seed not exceeding 141b in weight if of one kind,; and not exceeding 281b in weight if mixed. The provisions would not apply when an intimation was given, verbal or written, that seed was not required by the buyer for sowing, nor! would they apply in the case of a sale! of seed by a grower to a merchant. It: was lust a question, said the chairman, whether there should not be some pro-; vision for the projection of the merchant. The last case in which the provisions would not apply was that in which a sajle was made to a farmer by a grower of seed as harvested by him' without dressing or other treatment, provided that the purchaser was made fully aware of the condition of the seed, and provided further that not more than six such sales were made by the grower in any .one year. In reply to members, the chairman said he took it that this meant six complete transactions. Continuing, the chairman said that the Bill provided that every person who sold or offered seed for sale should state clearly to the purchaser or intending purchaser the kind or kinds of seed, and, where necessary for aecu--1 rate description, the variety or variej ties, sold or offered for sale by advertisement or otherwise, unless the kinds or varieties of the seed which the mixture was guaranteed to contain were also set forth. This, said the chair- . man, would have a tendency to stop the sale of cheap mixtures of seed. , Clause 5 of the Bill provided that on , the sale of any lot of seed the vendor j should, within tliree days of. the dej livery of such seed, supply to the pur- \ chaser an invoice certificate setting out, <! in addition to a description which would t identify the seed, the percentage by ' weight of extraneous seed present. The next clause provided that the purchaser of any plot of seed, or any inspector, . may, not later than seven days after 'the receipt of thesjseed and not sooner ( than two days after sending telegraphic 1 notice of the intention to the vendor, , take in the presence of two witnesses a sample of such seed and forward it to j the seed analyst for testing. Directions i for taking the sample were, laid down in the Bill. - Speaking on the Bill generally the chairman said that the only provision I that might be of some use to them was that contained in clause 5. There were some, he said, who thought that the clause meant that the invoice certificate j to be sent out would show the perceht- ' age of each kind of extraneous seed . contained in the lot sold, but h© would confess that he could not see it in that light. He" thought that it only provided that the total percentage of extraneous matter should be shown. If his contention was right they were not getting what they wanted. Mr. Buekerjdge pointed out that if a vendor had cause to show 20 per cent, of extraneous matter in his seed he might have the name "Calif ornian thistle" hidden amongst a list of harmless seeds, but "in stating that the whole amounted to 20 per cent, there would be nothing to show that 19 % per cent, was not Californian thistle. Mr. Owen pointed out that the merchant's business depended on .his supplying his customer* with good seed. Mr. Pierce said that the provisions in force at present allowed 51-per cent, of extraneous matter. He thought that for all practical purposes 20 per cent was not much better. Mr. Orr thought that the best thing they could do would be to find a new namV for- the Bill. They were calling it the "Clean" Seeds Bill, when really it was the "Dirty" Seeds Bill. Mr. Owen said that the nearest way of getting over the difficulty was to put the responsibility on the vendor. If the vendor knew that he was responsible for the damage done by the sale of extraneous seed than he would be more-careful. Mr, Betts suggested that some Government official should inspect every crop before it was cut for seed. It was next to impossible to separate all the extraneous matter from seed after it had been made up for sale. Mr. Orr thought that the Government should legislate to this effectAfter some further discussion, Mr. .Betts moved, and Mr. Pierce seconded: "That the attention of the ,Dominion Executive be drawn to the Bill, and that they and the members for the d:& Krict be asked to oppose the passage or the Bill in its present form." Mr. Astbury said that it was only fair that they should give some indication of the legislation to protect the purchaser that they wanted. On the motion of Messrs Pierce and Cleaver, a committee consisting of the chairman and Messrs Astbury and Owen was set up to go into this matter and bring down something in the nature of the legislation, that was needed.