REPORTS ON FOODSTUFFS.

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXIII, Issue 19456, 12 October 1926, Page 8

REPORTS ON FOODSTUFFS.

Interviewed in New York, Mr. Coates has made passing reference to the reports issued by the Imperial Economic Committee on the marketing and preparing for marketing of foodstuffs produced in the overseas parts of the Empire. As implied in his reference to them, they are exceedingly valuable. They are the result of very comprehensive and thorough investigation, and the four already issued—on marketing in general, meat, fruit and dairy produce —are models of systematic and lucid presentation of facts and recommendations. They are necessarily lengthy as well as somewhat technical. They could not be valuable otherwise. These features, probably, have led Mr. Coates to express a wish that they should be condensed for general issue to the public. No doubt he has in mind the livelihood that their usefulness is in danger of being seriously limited, through failure to find their way into the hands of those whose study of them is vital to, the purpose of their publication, and avoidance of that study by some on account of their voluminous form. But it must be said that condensation might decrease their value. It is desirable that producers and others in any of the Dominions should know what is being done elsewhere in the production and marketing of foodstuffs they handle, and this involves a practically worldwide survey, incapable of being presented in brief compass. Their salient facts may be dissemin ated by newspaper extracts, but those chiefly concerned should peruse the complete reports on matters in which they are severally and directly interested. A better plan, therefore, than to issue condensations of them would be to promote their sale at a relatively nominal price, and in this the Dominion Governments might co-operate. If they were thus readily available on application they would be assured of a much wider and more serviceable circulation than is likely under the necessity to procure them by direct or indirect order from the British Stationery Office.