MAJOR CHAPPIE'S OPTIMISM.

Free Lance, Volume XVIII, Issue 988, 11 June 1919, Page 8

MAJOR CHAPPIE'S OPTIMISM.

Good News for Producers. OUR old acquaintance, Major, or Dr. Oliapple as we used to know him, was one of the Scots Liberal members to whom the recent general election gave a temporary freedom from parliamentary honours and duties. The Major is re-visiting the Dominion and brings with him some very good news for the New Zealand producers. So far from the prices of our primary products being likely to drop the Major, who always had the reputation of being a keen and shrewd man of business, contends they will not only be well maintained but may even go up. As a matter of fact Major Chappie holds that given a really comprehensive organisation, at both ends, a quite substantially bigger return could be secured. * * * * It is the old, old stoix, the middleman is waxing fat at the expense of the producer. Not that the producer is 'doing badly. He has been doing remarkably well all through the war period, as that most outspoken of Ministers, the Hon. W. D. S. Mac Donald, bluntly told the Southland farmers last week. But if the London middleman's profits can "be cut down, the producer can do much better than he is doing to-day. And tli ere will be more wealth available upon which an ever watchful Minister of Finance can levy toll. The one fly in the ointment is the increasing probability of the local meat consumer getting his supplies at a more moderate rate.