DAIRY CONTROL.

Waipa Post, Volume XXIV, Issue 1434, 1 December 1923, Page 4

DAIRY CONTROL.

To the Editor. Sir, —A circular has been issued by

the Dairy Control Committee, of which Mr W. Grounds is chairman, and upon which I should like to pass a few comments. It opens with this statement: “In your acceptance of the Dairy Export Control Act a great forward movement has been made for co-operative dairying.” There are two things in that statement which are absolutely contrary to fact, for 9000 odd dairy farmers, plus perhaps many more thousands who never recorded their votes, were absolutely opposed to the Dairy Export Control Act. Further,' how can compulsion in anything be co-operation? The next statement: “Possibly an effort will be made by mercantile houses to get men elected who will watch their interests.” I take it that the mercantile houses include proprietary concerns. Now, under the regulations, these people do not need to get men elected to watch their interests; they have the power to appoint one member of the Board, and I am sure they will not appoint a fool. Another .statement is: “Others who have been opposing may urge the need of having some opposition representation on the Board.” Now, who has more right to have representation on the Board than those 9000 odd, plus some dairy farmers, who voted against the measure, and who, although they were in the minority on the voting, certainly carried a majority of intellect? It is only the minority, and only a very small minority at that, who have brains and refuse to be led like a pup on a string into any promoters’ compulsory cooperative stunt that is launched on a gullible public. Just listen to this beautiful bit of a bluff: “The issues at stake are altogether too great to run a risk of handing over its management to any who are out of sympathy with the aims and aspirations of the industry.” Does Mr Grounds, chairman of this so-called Dairy Control Committee, wish us to swallow the fact that the members of the Dairy Farmers’ Union who were refused representation on the ticket, and those 9000 odd, plus some dairy farmers who voted against control, are not in sympathy with 13 the wellbeing of the industry? Now, for the •last, loveliest and “rottenest” sentence in this wonderfully enlightening circular sent to us by Mr W. Grounds, chairman of this so-called Dairy Control Committee, who hails from the Winterless North, where the cows get gum-boils through chewing gum, and the natives go round on skis to avoid dropping out of sight through the cracks in the ground. This is it: “We are convinced of the inherent soundness of the measure and we appeal” (now why appeal?—compel would be more up-to-date) “to you to support the candidates nominated by the Dairy Control Committee,” (fifteen out of twenty of whom were pot-hunters, so Mr R. Cobbe says) “each of whom can be depended on to strive to advance the interests of dairymen.” Those twenty wonderful able-bodied men who probably never milked a cow of the four-legged variety are convinced of the inherent soundness of the measure. Yet eighty members of Parliament were not wholly convinced or they would never have left it to cockies to decide. Remember that 9000 odd, plus some cow-cockies, are not convinced; the best business men both in New Zealand and Great Britain are not convinced, the editors of the daily newspapers are not convinced, and, lastly, I am not convinced —because I've seen cockies who were convinced and who now have to work eighteen hours a day out of twenty-four because they were once induced to supply a dried milk factory. Britons never shall be slaves! I wonder how Mr Grounds secured the names of voters so that he is enabled to send out circulars, weeks before a copy of the roll was issued. —I am, etc., A CODGER.