DAIRY CONTROL BOARD.

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXII, Issue 19143, 8 October 1925, Page 9

DAIRY CONTROL BOARD.

Sir, —In your issue of October 2 Mr. Young, M. F. for Hamilton, in the debate on the Appropriation Bill, altering 'the date of the election for the Dairy Control Board from June 30 to August 31, makes the extra • ordinary claim that the House should be influenced more by the opinions of Mr. W. Goodfeliow and Mr. S. A. Ferguson, chairman of the South Auckland Dairy Association, than by the representatives of the whole of the rest of the dairy industry of New Zealand. The South Auckland Dairy Association is composed of four dairy companies, the New Zealand Cooperative Dairy Company aud three small dairy companies, and as- the voting in the association is on a tonnage basis, it is easily seen how the large company can dominate the small fry. At the annual meeting of the National Dairy Association, held at Hawera last June, which is the dairyman's parliament, an almost unanimous vote was carried in favour of the single ward system with the direct vote, the only ones voting against it being the representative of the New Zealand Co-operative Dairy Company and one or two others. Both the Farmers' Union and the Dairy Farmers' Union have repeatedly passed unanimous resolutions in favour "of it. In fact, the whole of the dairv industry, in both North and South Islands, is in favour of this amendment of the Act, with the exception of the New Zealand Co-operative Dairy Company and a few factories influenced by it. "Mr. Goodfeliow certainly has left no stone unturned in his endeavour to prevent this amendment from becoming law and was successful in preventing it from bein" introduced last session. The election of the directors ot the 2sew Zealand Co-operative Dairy Company, of which he is manager, is conducted on the ward system. If the system is necessary for the j comparatively small territory crrvered by 1 bis company, how much more is it necessary for the much larger ground covered by "the Control Board. The system of election of the Control Board, with only two electorates, viz., the whole of the Nortli Island and the South Island, is too ridiculous to be continued, and in spite of Mi-. Goodfeliow's influence, I am sure the House, in the future, as in the past, will have none of an artificial council or college system of election and will see that the producers, who have to pay the piper, will have tae direct, democratic vote ~'R a reasonable basis, and that is the division of the North Island into six and the South Island into three wards. _ J. E. Leesok. The Lak? Farm, Morrinsville, October 2, 1925.