DAIRY CONTROL ACT.

Waipa Post, Volume XXIV, Issue 1415, 13 October 1923, Page 4

DAIRY CONTROL ACT.

To the Editor. Sir—it gives hope and comfort to tlie dairy farmer to see such stout opposition to control and arbitrary interference with his rights and liberties and placing the disposal of his hardly-earned produce in the hands •„f untried and inexperienced Government nominees and place hunters. Our experience of Governmental control of primary and other products during the war was not a happy one. as it placed the farmer upon half-pay and compelled him to pay double price and over for everything he had to purchase and gave the Dominion itself a s:;t-back which will ke it many ; ears to restore to its 1 rmer pros)', rotts condition. The control of ox hides reduced the price of fat cattle 20s to 30s a head and gave leather manufacturers and fellmongers the pick at 13d per lb., without competition, while lowerclass cow hides and ox hides, slashed by butchers to ensure rejection by the favoured leather makers, sold at auction for export rt 22\! per lb. and over. The control of potatoes during the war stopped the export to Sydney, our only market, when prices were £ls per ton, against £5 here, with the result that much of our surplus was fed to stock and the remainder, some of which was not allowed to go to waste, was sold in auction rooms as low as 5s per sack, me latter having cost the grower about 2s and as much more for digging and handling. The wheat grower who, under that blessed word ‘‘control.’’ received only about half the price current in Britain and America and Canada, where the cost of production was less, like the potato cropper, is now almost annihilated. The control of sugar by the Board of Trade when it took its refinement and distribution out of the hands of the Sugar Company, more than doubled its cost to the consumer, raising the price, as you told us, from £23 15s to £52 per ton, and it is rumoured made a heavy loss in addition. which was ultimately converted into a profit also at the expense of the consumer by postponing reductions in cost. Need I say more ; j convince the sceptical that Government control and the introduction of Communistic and Socialistic fads are things to be avoided? The Meat Pool is being held up as a pattern to go by, but many competent to judge have serious misgivings as to its success in thki hands of men devoid of experience in the management of such a gigantic undertaking and wonder why the price of lamb has dropped a penny per lb. Some attribute it to kidney troubles, and if so. all Mr David Jones’s boasted savings have gone bv the board.—l am, etc.. SCEPTIC.