Poverty Bay Herald. PUBLISHED EVERY EVENING. GISBORNE, MONDAY, FEB, 13, 1922. CO-OPERATIVE MARKETING.

Poverty Bay Herald, Volume XLVIII, Issue 15748, 13 February 1922, Page 2

Poverty Bay Herald. PUBLISHED EVERY EVENING. GISBORNE, MONDAY, FEB, 13, 1922. CO-OP ERATIVE MARKETING.

It was somewhat of a coincidence that on the day the Meat Export Control Bill passed its final stages in the. New Zealand Legislature news should have come of a similar measure having been passed in the United States Congress, ibis latter, which is termed tlie Cooperative Marketing Hill, empowers farmers, ranchmen and other primary producers to combine for the marketing of their produce, subject to the satisfaction of the Secretary for Agriculture that such combinations are not using ihe powers granted them to unduly inflate prices to the consumer. The passing of such a fneasure is an acknowledgement by the Legislature of the United States that hitherto the farmer has not been getting a square deal. In that country such gigantic organisations as Ihe Meat Trust have held the rural industries in the hollow of their hand, and there, as here, the cost of production has now become such that is is imperative that the man on the land, if lie is to live, should Like concerted action to secure a greater proportion of ihe margin between production costs and selling prices coming to himself. The principle of co-operative • marketing is not new. There have been wheat poois, wool pools, fruit pools, and cotton pools, pools to handle garden and dairy produce, and even miniature pools in the form of egg circles, in existence for many years, and the experience gained has abundantly demonstrated the economic advantage of such methods of dealing with the outputs of particular industries. Experience also has shown that the strongest opposition arises from vested interests. It is instructive to get an .outside opinion on the controversy which arose in New Zealand over the meat pool proposals. The London correspondent of a Canadian paper telegraphing on January 4 stated: "The remarkably strong opposition which is being offered by prominent British firms interested in colonial trading to the New Zealand Government meat pool project is of considerable interest and relevance to Canada. Although Canadian interests are not directly concerned in tlie present instance, they have in the past encountered the same., antagonism on the part of powerful British tlading concerns.which feared that their operations would be hindered by colonial expansion. A very recent example was the protest made hv British West African merchant firms against the Colonial Office assisting the negotiation of a reciprocity treaty between Canada an the cine hand and Nigeria and the Gold Const on the* other. There was also much criticism of the initial proposal for the creation of the Canadian Government Merchant Marine, hut that has now largely been overcome by diplomatic alliances with private "sliipiiin firms. The creation of the Canadian Wheat Board during the war wag no better liked, by British than by Canadian grain interests. Canadian co-op orative fruit marketing schemes are the intcsL objects of hostility bn the part of vested interests here. Canadian apples, before they reach the tables of English consumers, increases tremendously in price and incidentally lose their identity. The big Covent Garden importers vigorously opposed the co-oper-ative marketing experiment recently made by the Ontario fruit growers, which, it. is understood, will he followed by others. The head of the largest linns told your correspondent that the London office of any co-operative agency of this kind .would not find it possible to purchase or rent a site at Covent Garden, and would in the last analysis find it necessary to deal through the big importers, in the present case, the New Zealand Government proposes to form a State meat- pool to control the exportation of the whole meat output of the Dominion, and this is being vehemently combated by the importers' of the United Kingdom.’’ It will be seen/from the above that, the problem is the 'same whether it bo in the United States, Canada or New Zealand, whether it relate to wheat, fruit, or meat. Big "business is alert and in vehement opposition to the creation of new processes of distribution. Yet in this age of adjustment new processes must come and the producers of this country, or am other country, are only following the law of self preservation in seeking to revolutionise the method of marketing to their own advantage. Wo are glad Mr Massey stuck to his guns and got the Bill through, and feel sure that the scheme contained in it, if wisely administered, will work greatly for the betterment of farming conditions in New Zealand and for the stabilisation of our national finance.