The Daily News TUESDAY, JUNE 16, 1931. THE CHEESE INDUSTRY.

Taranaki Daily News, 16 June 1931, Page 6

The Daily News TUESDAY, JUNE 16, 1931. THE CHEESE INDUSTRY.

At a New Plymouth gathering last Thursday night the Minister of Labour spoke of the importance of the conference to be held by the National Dairy Association next week. As a Minister of the Crown he already knew in a general way, he told his audience, the decisions reached by a conference on dairying matters recently organised by the Government-, but the results had not been “released for publication” and he was not at liberty to disclose them. They were to be ‘‘referred” to the coming gathering at New Plymouth. Naturally enough t ic Taranaki Daily News promptly asked why the secrecy mentioned by Mr. Smith was considered necessary, suggesting that if important changes of policy were pending the commonsense plan would be to seek the widest possible discussion of them before the National Dairy Association was asked to vote upon. them. This suggestion has been referred to the Minister of Agriculture, with a really amazing result. Mr. Murdoch, it is reported, takes exception to the statement that he has pursued a “hush, hush” policy, declaring that the resolutions passed by his conference at Wellington on May 15, as . well as the recommendations of the committee appointed at that conference, were sent out to all cheese factories in the North Island “on or about June 3” and to the recent conference of the South Island Dairy Association at Dunedin. Moreover, the Minister says, the committee’s finding was also given to the Press at Christchurch and Dunedin. We have described Mr. Murdoch’s statement as amazing, not because we desire to question the fact that he has made public the information he mentions, hut because his brother Minister was at pains, apparently a week after the information had been released, to stress the need for secrecy. It is indeed very gratifying to learn that Mr. Murdoch has not sought to hide the committee’s recommendations, though his efforts to publish them have not been as successful as could have been wished. If in future he would give all interested newspapers the opportunity of receiving important communications he could rest assured that adequate publicity would be afforded them, and even his colleagues would have no excuse for remaining -in the dark. In this case it seems particularly desirable that everyone interested in the dairy industry should have the fullest opportunity of discussing the committee’s important and far-reaching proposals. The first of them is a suggestion that in the manufacture of cheese “time limits and overtime, as stipulated by arbitration awards and agreements,” should be abolished, other means being found of “fully protecting the workers.” This is a, matter' in which other industries are scarcely less interested than the cheese industry, to which it is, of course, a really vital consideration. A great many authorities agree in the opinion that the making of cheese is unduly hastened in order that award hours of work may be scrupulously observed. In this perhaps more than in any other industry, though the principle applies everywhere, much good could be accomplished under a less rigid system- of regulation than that imposed by the Arbitration Court’s awards, and if the dairy industry could devise a better system it might well be nationally adopted as a means of helping to overcome existing difficulties. Another proposal relating to factory working put forward by the committee is that the delivery of milk should cease at 9 a.m. Every dairy company making cheese has probably discussed this question many times and would welcome a definite regulation to deal with it once and for all, but slipshod methods have persisted for lack of unity. The proposal to make milk grading compulsory, with an increased payment for the highest grade breaks no new ground, and past experience suggests that there may be division of opinion upon it, but the committee seems to have gone very deeply into this subject, and at least to have given tlic industry something to think about. The two remaining proposals, relating to the temperature of rooms in which cheese is cured and the transfer of suppliers from one company to another also indicate the care taken by the committee in formulating its ideas and the genuineness of its effort to help the industry. There is certainly nothing in the proposals to justify any suggestion of secrecy. Their scope is such that every supplier in t|ie Dominion will be affected by them if they are made the basis of new regulations, and it is therefore not only fair but also imperatively necessary that they should receive the utmost consideration before the representatives at next week’s conference are asked to vote upon them. It scarcely need be said now that the quality of the Dominion’s cheese must be materially improved if the industry is not to be ruined, and the commitlee’s proposals obviously arc based on a true appreciation of this position. It is to be hoped that, though the Minister’s effort to give them publicity has not been as successful as was desirable, the delay that has occurred.

will not prevent the industry from expressing its wishes fully and unmistakably and so giving the Minister a clear mandate to proceed to the issue of new and efficient regulations.