AS OTHERS SEE US.

Sun (Christchurch), Volume I, Issue 163, 15 August 1914, Page 2

AS OTHERS SEE US.

IMPRESSIONS OF CANTERBURY. Mr G. E. Salisbury, of Mary vale, New South Wales, who recently made a trip to New Zealand, contributes to the "Dairyman" of that State his impressions regarding the Dominion, and particularly with regard to the fanners' cooperative system as exemplified by the operations of the Canterbury Farmers' Co-operative Association. An outside criticism of our affairs is always interesting, and his observations are worth reproducing. "We called on the manager of the New r Zealand Farmers' Co-operative Association of Canterbury," he proceeds. "Mr Relph personally . showed us through their very fine premises, which consist of retail departments for groceries, manures, seeds, clothing of all descriptions, bacon factory, machinery department, motor cars, etc. The whole establishment is quite an 'eye-opener,' being most up-to-date in every department. The manager informed us that they paid out on an average £IO,OOO a day. Their stock sales department is a very large one, all stock being sold on a 2| per cent, commission, and a rebate of 30 per cent, has been paid on same for this last five years. They have some system by which the farmer can insure, also bank, through his own company. Even the manager banks his own private money with the company. We were also informed that the company has paid an average ,of 6d per lb for pigs for the last six years, and before the company started their curing works the private company gave the farmer a very poor price. We had a run out in the car with one of the company's auctioneers, a distance of about 30 miles, to a place called. Rangiora, where he was holding some sales, and I noticed that pigs in the yards did not bring any more than we can get on the Downs for them at auction; still the company can pay 6d per lb. I think this is due to the large retail trade that they are doing. I informed the manager that we were thinking of starting a branch of our company, and he advised us not to start in too big a way. He said really a buying agency and a depot was all that is needed, and., to only keep things that may be urgently needed; Asked about an advisory board, he did not believe in them, but thought the directors should be distributed over a large area. One good director in a district was better than an advisory board. We asked the manager's view on the concentration of our co-operative companies in Queensland. He considered it would be a good thing and the only real means of success, and by what I saw and learnt in my travel through New Zealand, I am very much in favour of the concentration of all the co-operative companies on the Downs,, and to make the.A.F.I;. the selling agents for same. I think it unreasonable that the owner of a 250-acre farm should need to hold shares in four; co-operative companies to manufacture and sell theKproduct of same when one company with one board of directors could manufacture and dispose of it in a much cheaper and better way. I would adviae any farmer that has any doubt as to the working of such a company to take a trip over to New Zealand and have a look through the New Zealand Co-operative Association of Canterbury 's works,, and they will plainly see -we are on the wrong track by having a lot of small companies really trading against one another, when their inter-, ests are all in common. The idea that Opposition, (even in ..co-operative com.panies) is a good thing is all bosh, and the petty jealous feeling that exists between towns and districts should be sunk in favour of a true co-operative spirit; that is if the farmers ever wish to get all the benefits that are to be derived from true co-operation. "The Canterbury district is really the best agricultural district we visited, but w r e were informed that most of the farmers were going out of wheat growing in favour of fat lamb raising owing to labour troubles and the country being too damp for the use of the harvester. To take off the crop with the reaper and binder was getting too expensive.

"My opinion of New Zealand is that it is a very prosperous country, much more so, I should say, than Australia, not because of having better and richer land, but owing to having a more moderate climate and a better average rainfall. The central creamery system is still in existence in most districts, which insures a better average quality of butter, but I do not consider the extra work in carting the milk over rough roads worth the difference in the price,"