The Daily News TUESDAY, JULY 18, 1933. NEW DAIRY REGULATIONS.

Taranaki Daily News, 18 July 1933, Page 4

The Daily News

TUESDAY, JULY 18, 1933. NEW DAIRY REGULATIONS.

OFFICES: NEW PLYMOUTH, Currie Street. STRATFORD, Broadway. HAWERA, High Street.

The action of the directors of the Bell Block Dairy Company in asking the manager of their factory to explain to suppliers the details and aims of the new dairy regulations was in every way commendable. The regulations have gone through the usual process of development. They have been assailed by critics and supported by advocates of closer supervision. Fortunately both critics and supporters have been at one in their genuine desire to see the quality of New Zealand’s dairy exports improved, however much they may have differed in regard to the best method of accomplishing that aim. There is no doubt that the regulations will demand better conditions of producing and handling milk on the farm. Some of their requirements are drastic, but so is the need for improvement. Scientists and experts have given conclusive reasons for the new regulations, and the industry generally has approved the introduction of measures intended to benefit it as a whole. But this having been admitted, there is no disguising the fact that to a great many suppliers a straight talk from the factory manager with whom they have dealings from day to day will make a greater appeal than the best possible advice from those whose qualifications the farmer does not question in the slightest, but who do not, he thinks, know the precise circumstances surrounding individual suppliers, and who cannot therefore see their viewpoint in regard to rules and regulations. With their own factory manager that does not apply. He usually knows something of the farms from which factory supplies are obtained, and of the people 6ccupying them. The factory manager and the suppliers have one aim in common, namely, to turn out manufactures of the highest quality, arid to do this they must assist one another. Finest grade butter or cheese needs finest grade raw material from all suppliers. From many it would be obtained without regulations, but there are others who require the spur of penalties if they are to be kept from indifference or ignorance of the proper methods of keeping and handling milk at the farm. The manager of the Bell Block factory, Mr. J. Thomson, appealed for co-operation between farm and factory. He showed that the tests to be applied, about which even experts hold conflicting views as regards their adequacy, often give almost identical results, and he gave suppliers some useful information regarding farm defects which lead to deterioration of milk supplies. That there is need for improvement in the raw milk supplied to factories is generally admitted, and when the manager who will actually handle his supply discusses with farmers the means of improving it the result is likely to be satisfactory to all concerned. The action taken by the Bell Block company might well become general throughout Taranaki. There is a good deal of doubt and fear concerning the new regulations abroad, which addresses like that given by Mr. Thomson would do much to remove. Other companies have done something in the direction chosen by the Bell Block Company, but the movement might be widened with considerable advantage to the dairy industry throughout the province. After all, as Mr. Thomson told his suppliers, the success of the factory is the particular business of the suppliers, and upon the measure of that success will depend the financial returns to the farmers. There are economic and political interests at work at present that may have serious effects upon the dairy industry. But whatever their outcome there is no gainsaying the fact that the higher the standard of quality is raised the more demand there will be for the products of the Dominion in Great Britain and elsewhere. Suppliers, factory managers, directors, selling agents and, above all, the consumers are all aware of the truth of this statement. Without first-class raw material the highest standard of quality in the. manufactured commodity is impossible of attainment.