THE Wairarapa Age MORNING DAILY. SATURDAY, MAY 5, 1934. THE DAIRY INQUIRY.

Wairarapa Age, 5 May 1934, Page 4

THE Wairarapa Age MORNING DAILY. SATURDAY, MAY 5, 1934. THE DAIRY INQUIRY.

Apart from being of wide range in its details, the order of reference of the Royal Commission set up to investigate the dairy industry empowers that body to inquire into all matters incidental or relevant that it may think proper. If the commission makes good use of its opportunities, the report it is asked to deliver by June 16 should be of considerable practical value. A task that otherwise would be almost overwhelming will be lightened greatly by what has already been done to point the way to progressive developments in production methods and marketing. Amongst other things, it should be an easy matter for the eom--mission to base specific recommendations on the definite evidence lately offered that the standards of cheese grading in this country are far from being identified, as they should be, with the standards that find favour on the British market. There is widespread agreement, too, amongst wellinformed people in the dairy industry that the patting of butter in Britain will do a great deal to make it more acceptable to the consumer. One good outcome of the present troubles is that there is now a very general inclination to favour stricter measures of regulation, from the farm onwards, with a view to setting the highest possible standards of quality. The most difficult problem to be attacked evidently is that of establishing the industry on a financial basis on which it will be able to carry on. The question is raised, amongst others, of .determining what the land and other assets utilised in the dairy industry are really worth. In any permanent adjustment of the affairs of the industry it will be necessary to moye away from the existing artificial conditions in which capital obligations are in great part suspended under the Mortgagors’ Relief legislation. Any immediate movement of this kind is, of course, impracticable, but measures of assistance that can only be effective while the suspension of capital obligations continues evidently will do little to lift the industry out of its difficulties. An adjustment based on real values must take place sooner or later and this should be recognised even in devising temporary measures to tide over the present crisis. The determining factor must be the productive value of dairying land, in its present uses and in possible alternative uses.

DANGEROUS BUILDINGS. It may be hoped that Masterton and other Wairarapa towns will follow promptly the excellent lead that Wellington City has given in enacting bylaws intended to provide reasonable safeguards against earthquake risks. Another suggestion has been made in the capital city which well deserves to be taken up here and elsewhere. This is that the removal from buildings of useless and dangerous features such as unduly heavy parapets should be subsidised as unemployment relief work. So much is to be eaid in favour of this proposal that there should be no great difficulty in inducing the Government and the Unemployment Board to adopt it. It is now recognised that buildiijg elevations topped off with tons of useless and frequently inelegant masses of brickwork or masonry constitute a potential menace to all street users and that it is very much in the interests of the community that as many as possible of these features should be removed. On the other hand, many owners of buildings are quite unable to meet the Whole cost of the work entailed. It counts for something, also, that there has been a rather belated awakening to the dangers occasioned by unduly heavy parapets and ornamentations and that owners of buildings cannot be blamed for . having followed the building fashion of their time. The proposal that the work of trimming buildings should be subsidised out of unemployment funds is one that may fairly bo pressed upon the Government. Everyone knows now that there are many buildings in Masterton, and in most other provincial towns as well as in the cities, that might advantageous-

ly be treated in this way,. The proposal that the work .should, be subsidised may the more readily commend itself to the Governmentsand the Unemployment Board since- many local bodies admittedly are .at ta» loss to find relief work of a reasonably productive kind.