INTERMEDIATE CREDITS BOARD.

Otago Witness, Issue 3870, 15 May 1928, Page 20

INTERMEDIATE CREDITS BOARD.

SIMPLIFYING PROCEDURE. WELLINGTON, May 12. The Rural Intermediate Credits Board has decided to discount promissory notes for individual farmers upon £lOO. if they are endorsed by4he companies with which the farmer is dealing. The registration of associations at Hamilton and Te Awamutu was approved. Several other associations have also been formed. The procedure in making applications for loans is to be simplified. A committee of the board’s members resident in Wellington being empowered to deal with them.

DAIRY FARMERS MEET.

CONTROL BOARD AND OTHER MATTERS. A well attended meeting of dairy farmers of Stirling-Inch Clutha, Paretai, and Kaitangata, held in the Stirling Factory Hall on Friday, was addressed by Mi- William Lee, of Goodwood, a candidate for the representation of Ward 8, extending from Ashburton to Kelso, on the Dairy Produce Control Board. Mr J. K. Wallace, who occupied the •hair. in introducing Mr Lee. said that next month the seat would fall vacant and Mr Lee had been asked to offer himself as a candidate. He was a dairyman like themselves, and well acquainted with the business and its requirements as regards export. Mr John Macaulay, of Flag Swamp, said there were misstatements in a paper circulating in the district. The speaker entered into a lengthy explanation to show that in place of the proprietary interests being othind Mr Lee, as insinuated, the candidate was an utter out-and-

out co-operator. The paper he referred to “ regretted that dairymen were being put to the expense of an election,” whereas the fact was that the levy had been already collected and the election would not mean any extra expense to the dairymen. Reference was also made to Mr Bryant, another candidate for the ward vacancy. The Chairman said that the rumours referred to had reached Stirling, but there was nothing in them. The statements were merely propaganda, and were recognised as such by all sensible dairymen. Mr Lee would not be chairman of the co-operative factory at Goodwood if his sympathies were not with the genuine cooperators. Mr Lee. who was well received, began by giving his personal experience of dairying on the Otago Peninsula 45 or 46 years ago, when he was a very small boy, and had learned to milk a cow. In those days separators were unknown, and prices for butter ranged around 4d and 5d a 11b. The speaker gave interesting details concerning a factory established on the Otago Peninsula by a Mr Riddell, which took the butter in granulated form from the farmer and mixed and graded-it. That was the first butter factory on the Peninsula, and he believed the first in Otago. It could only get 4d a lb for its export butter, however, and that finished it. The speaker traced from 1900 the gradual but steady increase in Otago’s production of butter and cheese, until it had assumed the large dimensions of today. It was somewhat remarkable that while the rise in Otago had been slow, that for the rest of New Zealand, and particularly the North Island, had been very rapid, until in 1926 the value of our exported dairy produce was £17,982,000, and in 1927 £15,222 000, the value having fallen by £2,000,000. Up to the time of the “ commandeer ” during the year the dairy export trade had been controlled by the North and South Island dairy associations, which held contracts with the shipping lines, but during the war the Government took control, and after the war the associations came in again until the Dairy Control Board took over. The speaker traced the history of the Meat Board, formed as the result of a slump in the meat trade, and said the undoubted success of that board had been due to the fact that it had never enforced compulsory control. On the other hand, the Dairy Board had tried it and had made a mess of things. There was this fundamental difference also in the two boards, that while in the case of the Meat Board the Government was pledged to give financial assistance if control came into force, the Government had refused to give that assurance in the case of the Dairy Board. When the Dairy Board Bill was passed in the House it was said that the Meat Board had been successful chieily owing to its moderation, and that the dairy farmers had nothing to fear from compulsion. Mr Nosworthy and Mr Grounds had given assurances that there would be no compulsion unless in the interests of the producer or in the case of a national emergency. They all knew what had happened. In the year before control the average price of our cheese in the London market was 97s 4d per cwt, and under the board the average had been about 84s a cwt. The compulsory clause had been put in the Act to serve as a whip, and now that it had been used and failed of effect it could not be used again, which he considered satisfactory from the dairyman’s point of view. Warnings had come of the probable results of compulsion from Mr Polson, Mr Downie Stewart, and Sir James Allen, yet the chairman of the Control Board had refused to be guided. The weakest point of the whole business, the speaker contended, was that the board received no financial assistance beyond the advances from the London merchants. The whole risk fell on the producers. Another point was that no matter what might be the result of any

action on the part of the Control Board no liability attached to any member of the board. The speaker said he was entirely opposed to the views regarding compulsion favoured by Mr Bryant, ami alleged that if a majority of the board held the same views they would have compulsion back to-morrow. He also criticised the very heavy expenses of the board, which, during the year of control, amounted to £54,516, including £5836 tor salaries in the London office. The sum total he had ’ mentioned did not include advertising, but included the travelling expenses of members of the board, the board was very fond of telling dairymen to bring down expenses, but it did not follow that advice itself. He thought the management expenses could be considerably reduced without impairing efficiency. The speaker criticised the method of election to the board, and favoured one man one vote among the dairymen. In dealing with shipping he commented on the fact that invariaoly a North Island port was made the final port of call, and if elected he would strive to get more consideration extended to Otago and the South Island generally in that respect. At present steamers went down empty from Dunedin to Port Chalmers, and the factories consequently had to pay railage on the produce from the cool stores at Dunedin to Port, which was a heavy tax. It would have been much better if the cool stores had been built at Port Chalmers. Recently one lot of cheese had had to be sent back from Port Chalmers after it reached the ship in order to have the temperature reduced at the cool store. That was a loss the factory should not have been called on to bear. If the Dairy Control Board would take steps to get New Zealand butter sdld in the principal towns of the United Kingdom as New Zealand butter it would constitute the very best advertisement that our produce could get. In discussing future prices he considered the outlooii for cheese co be better than that for butter, and seated that there was every prospect of increasing quantities of New Zealand cheese going into the United States, which was now taking less Canadian cheese. He supported the co-opera-tive factories. He based his platform on British freedom, and the right of every man to deal with his produce as he thought fit. — (Applause.) The Chairman invited questions, and Mr J. C. Anderson asked the candidate to explain why it was that New’ Zealand finest butter ruled 10s per cw't below Danish on the London market to-day? Mr Lee replied that Denmark was nearer to the market for one thing, and another reason to account for the higher price w’as perhaps because of the _fact that Danish butter was sold first in Denmark throughco-operative associations, who placed it on the London market. In answer to further questions from Mr Anderson, the candidate stated that the reductions in freight claimed to have been made by the Control Board would be from the war rates; no doubt the hoard had done its best in getting insurance rates of 9s 3d per cent, on cheese and 7s 3d per cent, on butter; these rates W’ere obtained through Lloyd’s; he did not know whether tenders had been called or not for the carriage of New Zealand’s dairy produce. Mr A. Afl. Jensen asked if the candidate would favour lessening the number of ships calling at a port when there was not a day’s loading in the consignment of dairy produce. Would it not be better to cut into bigger lots for export?—The candidate was understood to express his agreement w’ith this suggestion. Mr J. C. Anderson moved —“ That in the opinion of this meeting of delegates from factories in South Otago Mr Lee is a fit and proper person to represent them on the Control Board, and that those present use their best endeavours to secure his return." In sneaking to the motion,

Mr Anderson characterised the candidate as “ a real live man, with an iron backbone.” Mr J. G. Weir seconded the motion, which was carried unanimously by acclamation. A vote of thanks was also passed to ,Mr Macaulay.' CULL COWS. Mr J. C. Anderson spoke of the advisability of dairymen culling out their cows that did not test out well, and also the aged and barren cows, and said the South Otago Freezing Company was out to help by freezing these animals. The company was prepared to make a progress payment of 12s per 1001 b on the carcasses, and the vendor would get the hide and tongue, etc. If the meat realised higher than 12s per 1001 b when exported, the vendor would get the difference. The speaker asserted that three large combinations whose headquarters were outside of New Zealand were trying to kill the smaller co-operative freezing works in New Zealand by offering at the present time 2d per lb more for lamb than the London parity. W’hen the smaller works had been crushed the sheepmen would find out their predicament, which would be the. same as that of the sheepmen of the United States when the “ Big Five ” got control of the packing industry there. The meeting seemed favourable to Mr Anderson’s suggestions, and the latter urged that, if given effect to. it would mean a lessening of the unemployment which he foresaw was going to be very prevalent this winter. SUMMER TIME BILL. The Chairman stated that he had received a strongly-worded resolution which had been signed by 99 per cent, of the dairymen of Southland protesting against daylight saving as being “ detrimental to the dairy factory industry of New Zealand.” He asked that every dairyman m the room sign this resolution, which was going forward to Parliament in the form of a petition against the renewal of the Act. After discussion, Mr Jensen declared that the meeting should decide by vote, and moved a resolution protesting against the renewal of summer time. Mr Alexander Renton seconded, and the Chairman declared the motion carried almost unanimously. There was at lea t one dissentient.