THE PROPOSED DAIRY POOL.

New Zealand Herald, Volume LIX, Issue 18080, 3 May 1922, Page 6

THE PROPOSED DAIRY POOL.

The proposal to establish a New Zealand dairy pool will occasion no surprise. Producers arc now greatly concerned to make the best of tho available markets, and there is no denying that a strong selling organisation can be used to their great advantage. The Danes are credited with an exceptional organisation, both in Denmark and London, and the New Zealand proposal is not only to emulate them but to join with them and with Australia in fixing prices and regulating supplies. This, and the other purposes of tho pool, are well within the rights of the dairy farmers of New Zealand and since they propose to find their own capital, and meet their own costs without any charge upon tho Government, their scheme is not open to objections urged against the pooling system which lias becomo familiar in Australia and to a smaller extent in New Zealand. In one respect, however, the scheme goes further than any pool has yet gone. It is to be a compulsory pool, and since there is no hint of limiting its life the inference is that the compulsion is intended to be permanent. The meat pool may be cited as a precedent, but in this case the legislation was passed to meet an emergency, and it has not been suggested either that the Board of Control is to be a permanency or thaE the compulsory provisions of the Act are to bo operative for all time. On this point at least the proposals of the dairy industry will have to be seriously considered by the Government, by Parliament, and by the country before they become effective.