HONEY CONTROL

Southland Times, Issue 20172, 7 May 1927, Page 9

HONEY CONTROL

To the Editor. Sir, —In your issue of May 3 Mr Murdoch again returns to the fray; this time certainly in a more chastened mood, but it is plainly visible that his one aim right throughout is to smash Control by hook or by crook, and he uses the returned soldier as a blind to carry out his task. His letter, however, bristles with inaccuracies that have been repeated right throughout the Press of New Zealand from Auckland to Invercargill, and then towards the end of his letter has the impudence to state that “he has nothing to gain personally by this controversy,” but is desirous of helping the man who is not getting a fair price , for his labour,” and he thinks that the best way to get a fair return is to kick out the Control Board and the Honey Producers' Association, that is those who have built up the industry and spent thousands in advertising so that men like himself can have a free market for nothing with all the necessary machinery thrown in. He forgets that in 1922 he was glad to avail himself of the H.P.A. to sell his honey when there was no market for honey anywhere, and he helped in his small way to pile up the debt that is owing to Mills and Co., for Mills found the money for us and he got paid and then when the honey market cleared a bit owing to the vigorous advertising campaign he thought it better to ship home on his own account and so escape paying for the advertising, but in ! 1925 when the Control Board took “limited ' control” of the honey, Mr Murdoch was forced to pay his little quota and now he is very sore about that and wants to kill Control because it made him do his bit. In his letter he states that the directors of the H.P.A. have signed a joint and several guarantee to the bank for £lOOO each and they are fighting for their own protection. Now these are the very men whom Mr Murdoch would sacrifice first, though each of them stood to lose his all and what return would they get for it? Mr Murdoch proposes a brick house (a brick at a time). He states that he has taken a leading part in establishing the honey industry in New Zealand. Well, Mr Editor, your printer’s devil has done a thousand times more than ever he did for outside the city of Ross he is unknown. As far as the joint and several guarantees are concerned that does not now’ cause any of the directors one moment’s concern, for our credit balance at the Bank of New South Wales, Auckland, stands to-day at nearly £5OOO. Mr Murdoch next attacks last year's bal-ance-sheet because it suits his argument, and quotes Mr Cottrell, vho, like himself, was the only dissenting voice at the Hamilton meeting and who when he proposed a vote of “No Confidence in the Directorate” failed to find a seconder. The Hamilton people, like the West Coasters, also knew their man.

Mr Murdoch then attacks Mr Rentoul on | his salary and suggests that another should be appointed in London at £lOOO a year. | He writes rot about cutting down expenses and giving the poor beekeeper a better return for his honey. There is one sentence in Mr Murdoch’s letter that I take keen exception to, and that is where he attacks Mr Clark regarding £3OO granted for his expenses in London when attending to H.P.A. matters and suggesting that it was given to him to help float his company. Mr Clark floated his company in Auckland and our business was done in London, and if Mr Murdoch thinks that he can send a man Home and do the work that Mr Clark did for us well he had better find him. Again he says that the directors admit that bad management caused the present difficulties. The directors admit nothing of the sort. Where does the bad management come in with a bank balance of over £5OOO ? Our debt to Mills was a legacy from the War, and the New Zealand Honey Producers’ Association is the only honey company that weathered the great financial storm that followed the signing of Peace. When such great concerns as the Ohio Honey Co. and the Californian Honey Co. went bankrupt and threw their stocks on the London market, we pulled through with the assistance of A. J. Mills and Co. who financed the beekeepers of New Zea- ! land and carried on. He next proceeds to ; enumerate some half-dozen beekeepers | whom he alleges are quitting the industry. ! Well none of them is known personally by i me and I think that I have a pretty fair ' knowledge of the commercial beekeepers of ; the Dominion, but I do know the man ; whose crop ran into ten tons and I have j a shrewd suspicion that he learned the i commercial side of the industry from our { esteemed managing director. He says that i even Germany wants New Zealand honey, i Good Heavens. We sold them 70 tons last ! September, have been prosecuted for adver- i tising that our honey is the best in the I world and proved our case! As for the ! Germans manufacturing honey from sugar ' —They don’t. Last of all he asks Mr Irwin and myself ■ to formulate a scheme for increased pro- | duct ion. What will be the use of more pro- i duction if he smashes the Honey Control and the H.P.A.? Finally Mr Murdoch re-i minds me of a well-known Maori saying--- ! “Haka te haere he kuku he tc kainga,” ! which, translated, means that when away ! from home he is like the kaka, a very noisy i bird with a lot to say, but when he is at | home. where he is well known, he is like ' the pigeon—a silent bird.—l am, etc., j ROBERT GIBB. ' P.S.—I do not propose to carry this cor- . respondence any further, but if Mr Mur- ! doch wants any more information I will give it to him at the conference at Christ- i church on June 6. To the Editor. Sir, —I see Mr John Murdoch has again returned to his attack on the members of 1 the Honey Control Board. No doubt it | makes Mr Murdoch happy and does no one ( any harm. With regard to Mr Murdoch s i reference to myself. What he states is ! absolutely untrue. Beekeepers who are in- ' terested will have the opportunity to hear j the facts when our association meets. This . meeting has now been definitely arranged to take place on Wednesday, May 25, when , Mr Murdoch will have his opportunity to i convince Southland beekeepers that the [ Honey Control Board is a blight and mis- 1 fortune and that Mr Murdoch is the ! heaven-sent deliverer he proclaims himself. —I am, etc., L. IRWIN, Secretary S.B.K. Association.