TE AWAMUTU COURIER Printed on Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays FRIDAY, 4th FEBRUARY, 1949 DOMESTIC MILK SUPPLY

Te Awamutu Courier, Volume 78, Issue 7015, 4 February 1949, Page 4

TE AWAMUTU COURIER Printed on Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays FRIDAY, 4th FEBRUARY, 1949 DOMESTIC MILK SUPPLY

SOMEWHAT under pressure, and with undisguised misgivings, the Te Awamutu Borough Council has accepted responsibility as a Milk Authority, and thus makes directly effective in this locality the rationalisation scheme. Just what is intended is not yet apparent, and the Council seeks some fuller explanation of its new duties and what is intended. When he visited Te Awamutu in December the ex-director of the Mjlk Marketing Division indicated no better prospect than a continuing supply of stale milk in better containers, with, behind it all, a somewhat elaborate system of guarantees and margins. When regarded in the light that until rationalisation was introduced there had never been any problem of supply in Te Awamutu, and that apparently only the intervention of a socialist planning which, however necessary in some localities, had no

cause or merit in Te Awamutu created a break-down of supply, the innovation was unwelcome. The Borough Council, for its part, held aloof and refused to willingly subscribe to the iiegulatory code; It was told quite plainly that its non-co-operation was of little concern to those who had been given statutory’ powers, and that if local jurisdiction was not exercised som body from afar would dictate the measure of service Te Awamutu would receive. It is in such circumstances—almost under such a threat—that the Council comes into

line so as to preserve at least semblance of say and control over a very direct service of local importance, But that there are difficulties ahead no one will doubt. In a district essentially based on a dairy economy it i« absurd, to say the least, that household supply must come from afar and that fresh milk cannot be had. In fact, the whole scheme of milk mar-

keting seems very much open to question, and reports from England suggest that it is very much out of date. In Great Britain reports indicate a desire to assure delivery of fresh milk with pasteurisation only in circumstances when time and distance make delivery of fresh milk impossible. In New Zealand the idea of pasteurisation seems to have been made universal. In Great Britain the use of bottles has passed- out of favour except in schools where the vagaries of domestic misuse of bottles can be avoided. In fact, according to English report, booties are most uneconomic and unsavoury containers of milk. It suggests that New Zealand is not following tested experience in the methods now adopted. The idea of monopoly is given legislative authority in the creation of councils and boards and in the principles of guarantees and margins. In any case there was no milk supply problem in Te Awamutu until the new theories were applied. The effective result has been the withdrawal of fresh milk and the substitution of stale milk; and whatever is offered through a local body acting as a milk authority discloses little promise for an improvement of supply. However, as the Borough Council has now entered the arena and assumed statutory responsibilities, its first and most important duty will be to end the fiasco of stale milk from afar and to gain

assurances not so much for an improvement of the containers but rather in what those containers contain.