ABSOLUTE CONTROL

Southland Times, Issue 20833, 23 July 1929, Page 3

ABSOLUTE CONTROL

ITS OPERATION. SOME MISGIVINGS. (Nineteen Twenty-Eight Committee.) With “Absolute Control” still imposed upon exported fruit and honey, and not altogether ■unlikely to be reimposed upon dairy produce, it behoves the public to watch closely such intrusions upon legitimate private enterprise. Absolute control not only stifles individual effort and discourages personal initiative, but it also involves the whole community, more or less, in the perils of inefficiency and extravagance. Of these evils there was abundant evidence during the period in which the Dairy Control Board experimented, at the expense of the producers, with absolute control. Just now, if current reports are to be trusted, further evidence to the same effect is nearer to hand.

It is common talk in shipping and commercial circles that in the early part of the apple season, owing to wrong calculations as to the supplies available, the board in many cases was unable to fill the space it had booked. Later on in the season, so it is said, the space booked was insufficient to carry all the fruit available, with the result that many thousands of cases had to remain for lengthy periods in the Wellington Harbour Board’s cheese store, which is regarded by experts as unsuitable for the storage of fruit, except for short periods. Orchardists who had correctly estimated their space requirements and booked for later shipments accordingly, it is complained, had their space commandeered for the shipment of the accumulated surpluses of less vigilant producers and now are not only in danger of missing the Hush of the market, but. also are running the risk of their fruit seriously deteriorating in consequence of the delay. Further than this, it is stated that when the fruit accumulated in the Wellington Harbour Board’s cheese store came to be shipped, so large a proportion of it was found to be in such unsatisfactory condition that the shipping companies divested themselves of all responsibility for its condition when it reached its destination.

Unless the position has been much misrepresented, the Fruit Control Board has a very weighty indictment to meet, and the sooner it sets about, the task the better it will be for its own reputation and for the equanimity of the shippers. The unhappy taxpayers are pledged to a subsidy that may run them into an expenditure of £100,090 or so for the present season, but they will not be likely to repeat, this bounty if any considerable portion of the fruit now in transit turns out to be in the condition indicated by the attitude of the shipping companies. The whole question of the State subsidizing fruit entrusted to the care of a body exercising absolute control and recognizing no constituted authority is one the Government well might take into consideration at the present time. Presuming for a moment that the report to the effect that many thousand cases of fruit despatched from Wellington this season were in bad condition before they left port is well founded, then it was a foregone conclusion that the taxpayers in due course would have to make good the losses of the shippers. This goe.s not imply that the growers were dishonest or that the graders were inattentive. It simply suggests that absolute control stands in need of a very thorough investigation.