ALL IS NOT WELL.

Putaruru Press, Volume XI, Issue 252, 18 May 1933, Page 4

ALL IS NOT WELL.

THE exhaustive report which has been issued by Professors Riddet and Marsden provides matter for serious thought. It is not so much that it tells much that is new but that it groups causes and suggests remedies. Corroboration of the criticism is supplied in part by a comparison of the prices of New Zealand and Danish butter. It is this which induces Professors Riddet and Marsden to emphasise the paramount need for recognising the great changes that have taken place in the dairying export trade and the necessity for adjusting the industry to those changes. Their opinions may be summarised as stating that the dairy export trade, is regarded too much from the sellers’ outlook and too little from the buyers’. The industry is viewed from the two points of manufacture and marketing. Suggesting improvement, the report, emphasising the necessity for an improved article, deplores competition between co-operative factories for milk supplies as destructive of real co-operation and for other reasons. Protection of factory managers so that their posts may be more secure in the proper execution of their duties is regarded as of the utmost importance. Registration of factory managers is strongly recommended. The industry should strive after a milk of normal test, say 3.6 to 4 per ce: as the ideal. Special difficulties atte. >nt on manufacture of cheese from high-testing milk should be investigated further. It is remarked that there is room for improvement in factory labour and conditions, and j that at very little cost to the in- I dustry. J The need for some unified and strong controlling body is stressed. \ “ The question to-day is : To which 1 body do we look for leadership ? ” When a major problem arises there ' is immediately a division as to which body should tackle it, states the report, and the professors proceed that this state of affairs is fatal to a developing industry in times such as this when momentous problems are, constantly arising and demaiiding prompt and sound decisions,

and when a major industry requires guidance through a period of great economic difficulty. They suggest the establishment of a federation system. If such a system is to be adopted, the professors state, a reasonable scheme of organisation would be for election of the principal body, to be taken in stages, from suppliers to factory directorates, factory directors to federation, and federation directors to Dairy Board, thus successively removing control from temporary chance election issues and tending towards stability.