THE DAIRY POOL.

Taranaki Daily News, 27 July 1922, Page 7

THE DAIRY POOL.

LOOKING AHEAD; NEED FOR ORGANISATION. Wellington, July 25. Mr. W. J. Polson, in his address to the Farmers’ Union annual conference to-day, said: Like his neighbor, the sheep man, the northern dairy-farmer has come to the inevitable conclusion that co-operation cannot be fully applied to his great industry without compulsion. Dairymen have realised, just as their fellow-farmers in other and older countries of the world have realised it, that they must fight for their own hand. They are discovering that they must carry the fight right through to the consumer’s doorstep. None of the marketing schemes which the dairyman at present makes use of are so satisfactory as, for example, the Danish system. We are handicapped in our competition with the Danes, not only by 12,000 miles of sea, but by a comparatively antiquated and inefficient system of selling our product. While prices were soaring we could afford to disregard considerations. of prudence, but with lower values and the ever-loom-ing prospect of still keener competition ahead, we must leave nothing to chance. We cannot gamble with the future. We must control the handling and distribution of our dairy produce just as we are seeking to control the marketing of our meat. There is no time to be lost in exploring this question. When we recall the enormous pre-war development of Siberia as a dairying country, and recollect that what she was able to do before the war she will be some day able to do again, ( we cannot, dismiss the matter lightly. The development of the dairying industry in Argentina, South Africa, America and Australasia has be:n great enough to enable . our English customer to get. his normal pre-war supply of the produce of the cow without the efforts of Siberia. When the day returns that Siberia takes her former place as the greatest dairying country on the face of the globe, we shall see such competition as will force us to adopt compulsory co-operation as our great fighting weapon if we have not already done so. Unanimity is essential, however, and unfortunately our southern dairymen do not see eye to eye with the north. They have been impressed by the methols of Canada, and prefer to support a scheme of inviting the buyer to come to the seller instead of sending the product to the market. The proposal is not without attractiveness. The dairy-farmer would get his money at once, would control the marketing of his own produce, and he would be rid of many troubles connected with shipping, insurance, finance, and exchange. i But if the producer will reflect for a ; moment, he will realise that this is a world in which no one gets something for nothing in business. When the dairyman passes on trouble to someone else, instead of shouldering it himself, he is inviting the exploiter to take advantage of his own indiligence. Apkrt from this consideration, however, the proposal must meet with very grave objections. If we are at the mercy of the blender and the speculator when we market our produce in London under the existing system, how much more will such be the case when we dispose of it to the representatives of the same interests in New Zealand. Our chief difficulty today is to obtain recognition for our butter under distinctive New Zealand brands. A system of marketing it in New Zealand will not relieve us; on the contrary, it will create still greater opportunities for the middlemen, who are believed to live upon us and prosper exceedingly because of our lack of enterprise and initiative. ' It is our duty as the great political or- ' ganisat-ion of the fanner in this country to : use all our efforts to assist our dairy-farm- ' ers in obtaining this great reform. If i we show determination and unanimity the I fight is already won. The State has recognised the principle in the Meat Export Control Act, and what has been granted to the meat producers cannot be denied to the butter producers, if they make it sufficiently plain to those who sit in high places that they have madd up their minds.