DAIRY CONTROL BOARD.

Otago Witness, Issue 3888, 18 September 1928, Page 23

DAIRY CONTROL BOARD.

SHIPPING CHARGES. FURTHER DEVELOPMENTS EXPECTED. PAHIATUA September 11. Further developments are expected today in connection with the recent controversy over the policy of the Dairy Produce Board. The action of the board’s chairman was severely criticised at the Rexdale Company’s annual meeting. Mr J. G. Brechin, who made a charge against Mr lorns, chairman of the boarci, that he used his casting vote against the acceptance of an offer of the Dairy Asociation to carry but the shipping of dairy produce at the ports of New Plymouth, and Auckland and South Island ports for £2OOO, and that he set up the board’s own offices at an estimated cost of over £3OOO to carry out the same work, replying to Mr lorns’s statement in answer to the charge, points out that the chairman of the board now states that he had been paying far too high a price for services rendered in the past by the Dairy Association. He says Mr lorns forgets that this offer of the association was by way of a tender, that it was unanimously * accepted by his board, and that the association received letters of appreciation from the board on the manner in which the work had been carried out. In any case, states Air Brechin, the fact that the chairman of the board was now of the opinion that the charges were too high did not justify him using his casting, vote in the direction of throwing away another £lOOO or more on shipping work, which was exactly what Mr lorns was doing. Surely the chairman of the board was not inspired by spitefulness towards the Dairy Association, because it championed the cause of the dairy farmers against the actions of the board. “ Many matters in Mr lorns’s alleged reply to the shipping charges will,” states Mr Brechin, “ inspire a fervent prayer from his board to be saved from its chairman, while the prayers of the dairy farmers will be that, they may be preserved from Mr lorns and his ‘ commercialised bobtailed board.’ ” POLICY AND ACTIVITIES. STATEMENT BY MR lORNS. MASTERTON, September 14. An address on the policy and activities of the Dairy Board was delivered by the chairman (Mr W. A. lorns) at a largely-attended annual meeting of the Masterton Dairy Company to-day. Mr lorns was received with hearty applause. He ridiculed the statement emanating from Pahiatua that the Dairy Board was paying £lOOO more for shipping services than it could have got the work done for. Prior to the last meeting of the board the committee set up to go into the whole question of shipping brought down a report which recommended that members of the board’s headquarters staff should be transferred —one to New Plymouth and one to Auckland to handle the shipping work. It was added that these men could also be utilised for doing a

certain amount of the board’s work other than shipping. In advocating this change the committee urged that it would facilitate and made more efficient the work of inspection at the ports. Members of the committee were confident that the board could do the work as cheaply .as the associations. Mr lorns said he had always favoured this policy. The statement in the press that the board last year unanimously agreed to give its shipping work to the associations was absolutely incorrect. This work had been done by the associations to the satisfaction of the board in the past, but there had been discontent on the part of other producers’ organisations and factories on account of the increased production and separate documentation of white and coloured cheese.

Mi 1 lorns observed that the shipping agency work would be much heavier this year than in the past; yet the associations -were now prepared to do this work for £2OOO, excluding Wellington, whereas their charges in earlier years had been: 1924- (including Wellington), £5750; 1925- £2900; 1926-27, £7300 (including work done under absolute control). The first tender put in by the associations for 1927-28 was £4450, but on some members of the board taking exception to this price an offer was made to do the work for £3535, a saving for that year alone of over £9OO. If the shipping work could be done by the associations for £2OOO what justification*was there for the difference between this amount and what the board had paid them- during the past five years? It "was absolutely imperative, Mr lorns declared, that the board should closely control the handling and of dairy produce. The criticisms of the recent policy of the board had all come from the factories which had on their directorates members of associations which suffered a loss of revenue by the decision of the board to do its own shipping work. As showing how an individual company benefited from the existence of the board. Mr lorns said that the Masterton Dairy Company paid £145 a year to keep the board going,'and in 1929-30 there would be a reduction of £lOO3 per annum in the company’s freights alone (irrespective of other items) since the board had come into existence. He was not going to take credit to the board for the whole of this reduction, but the board was the only authority that had ever been set up in this country to make statutory contracts for the whole of the dairy industry. Before the board was brought into existence the producers had no effective means of seaurjng freight and other reductions. The reductions in insurance . rates negotiated by the board represented a saving to the Masterton company of £ll3 a year. There was a further saving to the company of £lOO a year by the reduction of the charges for cold storage in London. .

A vote of thanks to Mr lorns and of confidence in the Dairy Board a,nd in Mr Torus as chairman of that body was carried unanimously.