CREAM SUPPLIES

Otago Daily Times, Issue 26709, 2 March 1948, Page 4

CREAM SUPPLIES

SHORTAGE IN CITY \ VALUE OF PERMITS NO OBLIGATION ON VENDORS A permit issued on a doctor’s order authorising a person in ill-health to purchase cream peaces no obligation on a vendor to supply it. The permit is merely an authority to obtain cream when it is available. This was the explanation given yesterday when inquiries, based on a letter from a correspondent, were made by the Daily Times yesterday. "I have a dairy and six customers with cream permits,” the correspondent wrote. “ What is the use of doctors issuing these permits when cream cannot be procured? I have been*unable to supply cream for over a week. I wonder why.” Vendors were under no obligation to supply cream to those . holding the necessary permits, said the secretary of the Dunedin Metropolitan Milk Board, Mr A. E. Russell, when the letter was referred to him. Suppliers authorised to separate cream for resale to permit holders, too, were not bound to meet the demand. Demand for Milk Cream was not, as some persons believed, a rationed commodity, Mr Russell added. Holders of permits were entitled to crqam—if tney could get it. Mr Russell attributed the correspondent’s difficulty in obtaining cream to tne unprecedented demand for miljjt, caused by the influx of centennial visitors. He pointed out that suppliers were separating only a mi.nfmum of cream for local sale in view of the Aid for Britain Council’s request for greater butter production. Mr Russell said he agreed with the correspondent in questioning the wisdom of doctors in prescribing cream when it was difficult to obtain. The president of the Dunedin branch of the British Medical Association, Dr E. R. Harty, said yesterday that it came as a surprise to him to learn that cream was not available for permit holders. He and, he was sure, every other doctor, had taken it for granted that cream would be available. It followed that if a doctor granted an order, he considered that cream for his patient was a necessity. That cream should not be available for these people appeaied to disclose a chaotic situation. Priority for Hospitals The manager of the Dunedin Milk Treatment Station, Mr G. Hepburn, confirmed the information that it had not been possible recently to meet orders for cream, and he added that those to whom wholesale quantities were customarily supplied had also been going short. There had been a huge demand for milk during the past week, he added, and he saw no indications that it was falling off. His station normally supplied only part of Dunedin’s cream requirements, and it was not under an obligation to meet orders. It.was doing its best to fulfil requirements and in the meantime had taken measures to ensure that hospitals had a priority and were fully supplied.

The position of the Rationing Office is that while a vendor cannot sell cream without its authority, it has no power to compel him to sell cream to those to whom permits have been issued.