MR. P. O. VEALE REPLIES

Taranaki Daily News, 31 August 1933, Page 3

MR. P. O. VEALE REPLIES

CRITICISM OF MINIS i ER IGNORING OF SCIENTISTS. NEW ZEALAND NOT PROGRESSIVE. Criticism of the Minister of Agriculture’s reply to his , recent open letter was given by Mr. P. O. Veale, research chemist at the Hawera laboratory, in a statement to the Press yesterday. Mr. Veale said “the Minister had very conveniently side-stepped all the principal issues, and that his remarks at Hamilton were really no reply at all.” Mr. Veale said he could only assume that the Minister was unable to give any satisfactory, explanation of .the important disclosures made, namely, (1) that he had caused the regulations to be drafted and printed before ever calling the committee together; (2) that he had gazetted the regulations as law despite the united opposition of the scientific and manufacturing representatives to the provisions governing milk grading; (3) that without authority from the committee or specific instruction from the resolution which named the personnel of the committee he had raised the departmental representation on the committee to four, whereas the only other organisation to have as many as three representatives was the Dairy Board; (4) that the weight of scientific and practical evidence was against the department in its stand, and particularly that the Dairy Division would not accept the emphatic recommendations of the New Zealand Department of Scientific and Industrial . Research and of the Dairy Research Institute. .

The Minister might have his own views, said Mr. Veale, upon his powers of adding to any committee and of exercising casting votes, but the fact remained that the committee was set up by a meeting of the industry, not by the Minister. Then again the specific purpose of the committee was “to confer with and advise the Minister” regarding the framing of the regulations demanded by the Dairy Board. It was difficult to reconcile this with the action of the Minister and his department. MINISTER’S BACKING. Mr. Veale further stated that the Minister’s claim to scientific backing for the departmental stand would not bear investigation. Dr. Reakes and Mr. Singleton might once have been versed in' the dairy science of their day, but their dairy spience, as shown by their public-utterances in regard to milk grading, was hopelessly out of date—“as obsolete as the manufacture of cheese without starter-culture, to which era the curd test belonged.” Their only “scientific” supporter in New Zealand was the “department’s own scientist,” who had “of his own free will” sided with his superior officers. Mr. Veale left it to the public to decide whether such .“support” could be ’deemed impartial and of any value. In any case, New Zealand scientists were entitled to ask why should the opinion of one individual, “the .department’s own scientist” be held sufficient to outweigh that of the Director of Dairy Research, the secretary of the Department of Scientific and Industrial Research, his own and that of other independent scientists in New Zealand, to say nothing of overseas authorities of world-wide renown. New Zealand taxpayers were entitled to ask why should the Department of Agriculture continue to maintain its own laboratory and its own scientist and to ■ use these to oppose the findings of Massey ' College, also maintained at its expense. The nett result was to commit the Government to a vote of no-confi-dence in science by • retaining, as the premier test in milk grading, an obsolete, non-scientific test which was .in vogue before the Babcock test was invented. Hence much of the money being spent on* dairy, research in New Zealand was going- for nothing as long as the department had its way. ■ OVERSEAS AUTHORITIES. /“Mr. Macmillan attempted to quote overseas authorities to support his unreasonable stand in favour of the obsolete curd test, but here he got into deep water,” said Mr. Veale. “The statement from the Journal of Dairy Research, 1930, that "no one method is capable of giving exact information as to the numbers of living bacteria in milk, does not apply at all to the problem of milk grading for cheese, which has never required ‘exact information’ as to numbers, but only a, broad classification into good, medium and bad. . If Mr. Macmillan had read the whole article and understood it he would have remembered the opening sentence which. stressed ‘the importance of securing milk, of low bacterial content, whether for sale as liquid milk or for use in the manufacture of dairy products.’ Aho, he would have noted that under a discussion of the reductase test New Zealand ‘first grade’ milk for cheese-making (according to the departinental standard) can fall into class 3 out of four possible classes, and is known overseas-as ‘bad milk.’ He would also have read the statement that ‘the fermentation (curd): test is not a reliable index of the presence of coliform organisms in milk,’ but of course he would not have believed that, because Mr. Singleton argues to the contrary. He would also have read. still in the same article that the direct microscopic count has ‘the official sanction of the American Public Health Association,’ that ‘most bacteriologists areagreed that it is: a very valuable method,’ and ‘it has the merits of rapidity and cheapness in working, and can certainly be used to advantage when it is desired to separate bad and indifferent milk from good when the number of suppliers is large ’ ”

Dealing with the “too much-depart-Bientally-quoted German scientists about whom, incidentally, the world knew nothing,” Mr. Veale said that they advocated a rennet-fermentation test quite different from the - New Zealand: curd test, and that Mr. Macmillan had no warrant for assuming their support. The Minister’s other quotation from a text book was also no support for the department and the one statement “milk with a very high bacterial count may give a desirable curd, and another lot with a low count may give a very undesirable curd” was quite sufficient in itself to condemn the curd test out of hand. ■ ' 1 “REGULATIONS A DISGRACE.” Mr. Veale said his concern was to so model the regulations that they would he a source of pride to New Zealand and a powerful factor in advertising the quality of New Zealand produce in England. “At present the regulations are a disgrace and a source of shame,” he said. “They advertise an out-of-date Department of Agriculture with no appreciation of .modem science and, what Is worse, make it appear that our milk quality’ for cheese is deplorable. The Minister’s recent statement at Hamilton that the curd test regulations would ‘help materially to improve the quality of . the milk used for cheese-making’ is, to those who understand the position, a really damaging disclosure. Overseas competitors and buyers would be entitled to say ‘God help the present quality of. New Zealand milk and cheese if the, ancient curd test is going to make all that difference to it.’ Personally I

deny the Minister’s statement. The curd would make no improvement at all. It would provide a sort of lucky bag, out of which a certain number of ‘second grades’ would be occasionally . drawn, but it would not improve the general, position. In fact, practically every dairy company which referred to milk grading in its annual report stated that its own suppliers had ‘nothing to fear’ from the regulations and that all would have no difficulty in conforming to the standards.” ' Mr. Veale maintained that the time had come for New Zealand to range alongside the development of other countries in dairy science; to define milk quality boldly in terms of bacterial standards which were known and appreciated overseas; to use the milk grading methods approved by the most progressive countries and to advertise the facts when selling produce. He did not see how any Minister who considered himself progressive could be saUsfied With less,