N.Z. DAIRY ASSOCIATION

Southland Times, Issue 14505, 25 August 1910, Page 5

N.Z. DAIRY ASSOCIATION

THE YEAR’S DOINGS. (Per United Press Association). AUCKLAND. Aug. 24. The annual meeting of shareholders in the New Zealand Dairy Association was held this afternoon, when the chairman of directors (Mr Wesley Spragg) presided. In moving the adoption of the report and balance sheet Mr Spragg said that the Company was quite out of debt, no lien of any kind now remaining upon any of its property. They had contracted to pay off the debt in a given time and had done so a year ahead of the time allowed. The book statement of value of the property was £55.547, after an allowance of £22,748 for maintenance had been made. During th© nine years since the Company first started the sum of £19,299 had also been written off for depreciation. During the same period no account was taken of appreciation in value of the real estate of the Company, which,’in sympathy with the general improvement in land values, was very considerable. Another satisfactory feature disclosed by the report was the increase of the output and the natural result of reduction in cost of production. The manufacture of butter for file past year was 5,365,898 lbs, which represented an increase for the year of 1,193,9431h5, or, in larger terms, they had this year manufactured an extra .533 tons at an additional cost of 5.71 per cent, only a saving of £7270, or nearly %d per lb upon the whole of the season's butter fat. That was important as indicating the possibilities of the future. He believed the time had arrived for a wide sweeping effort to secure in one co-operative enterprise all the districts which lay naturally within one co-operative area. Their own Association operated in 66 separate districts in the middle of this province. Mixed up with these and overlapping and fighting one against the other were a number of other co-operative companies and creameries which, with their own, were wasting money which would otherwise be available for the farmers. He thought the time had arrived when an effort should be made to gather the co-operative companies as well as the several proprietary businesses in the district into one truly co-operafive company. Continuing, Mr Spragg said : •‘The Dominion is at the present in a distinctly prosperous condition. When that is the case with a country the politicians are apt to consider themselves as responsible. But the foundation of any State is the man who stands underneath and gives it its essential elementary basis, is the man who produces It* food stuffs—the farmer.”