STANDARDIZED CHEESE AND ROMNEY WOOL.

Southland Times, Issue 21263, 9 December 1930, Page 3

STANDARDIZED CHEESE AND ROMNEY WOOL.

To The Editor.

Sir, —Your foot-note to my letter on the above subjects is hardly what one would expect after all your wild talk on ‘‘quality first.” The breeding of Romney sheep is just as much a deliberate act, as the manufacture of standardized cheese and the product of either act is just as much entitled to be prohibitecl from export, as there have been complaints just as genuine regarding Romney wool as standardized cheese. In fact the latter is in much the better case, aS there is no doubt that much standardized cheese is equal to any cheese produced in New Zealand (the champion cheese at the Waikato Dairy Show was a standardized cheese), but there has been no expert opinion expressed that Romney wool was the equal of, say, Merino. If your “quality first” theory is correct only the latter would be exported. Of course, much money would be lost to the farming community, but as you say, that would not matter as long as we had a reputation for high-class wool. As regards whey butter it is usually ten or twelve shillings a hundred weight below creamery' so it is definitely an inferior article and therefore more likely to injure New Zealand’s butter reputation than standardized cheese is likely to ruin the cheese industry. However, the Southland Farmers' Union is not likely, to protest against the export of Romney, wool or whey butter as members of the. Union have one or both to sell, whereas they have no standardized cheese. Like the authors of the complaints from Yorkshire and London, they' are interested parties.—l am, etc., , RUSTICUS. [Our correspondent forgets that if there is a good demand, London will be as ready to sell “standardized” as full cream cheese, which suggests that the warnings about the former are not made by parties wishing to serve their own interests at the expense of the producers. If “Rusticus” cannot see the difference between. the effect of skimming milk for cheese, and of the gradual deterioration of one class of wool, he is hopeless. His suggestion that “quality first” means the export of only Merino wool, is as absurd as his other arguments.—Ed. S.T.J GOLDEN ARROW EXHIBITION. To The Editor. Sir,—l noticed some days ago that a correspondent expressed wonder at employees in Morris Motors smoking while at work. I would draw his and others attention to an article w’hich appeared in that wellknown journal, "The Autocar.” The article, ”W. R. Morris, The Man and the Romance,” is written by the editor himself, Mr H. Massac Buist, and happily deals with the matter mentioned by your correspondent. At page No. 465 of “The Autocar,” for September 7, 1928, the following appears verbatim “Section 2. Employer and Workers”: “This brings me to the point that h’s works are. not what are called a Trade . Union Shop, though the men earn more money .than Trade Union rates and Trade Unionists are anxious to obtain employment where they know that everything ; human forethought and managerial pluck can do to ensure permanent work is done. “Although most of the original employees are still at work, there are no passengers aboard the good ship “Morris Motors.” Men and women are paid lor what they do. From the outset Mr H. Landstad, the general works manager, was allowed to lay out a bonus system. The average amount of money the women workers and the unskilled men take home at the end of the week is about £4 7/-. Moreover, here you shall discover that American operatives are by no means the only ones having their own motor cars. Large numbers of Morris operatives also have their own cars and use them daily to go to and from work. Yet others club together and buy a car in common. “But, unlike that scientific form of slavery which characterizes American industry' as I have seen it, I observe that Morris has never forgotten that he began life as a manual worker, so continued many years, and that he used to like an occasional smoke. Therefore, throughout the shops wherein it is practicable, the operative.s-are. allowed to smoke. The body shop, of course, constitutes an exception for the simple reason that the conditions of the work would render smoking unsafe.”—l am ect., “MURIHIKU.”