The Waipa Post. Published on Tuesdays, Thursdays, and Saturdays. SATURDAY, FEBRUARY 14, 1925. DAIRY CONTROL BOARD.

Waipa Post, Volume XXIV, Issue 1607, 14 February 1925, Page 4

The Wai pa Post. Published on Tuesdays, Thursdays, and Saturdays. SATURDAY, FEBRUARY 14, 1925. DAIRY CONTROL BOARD.

THE voluminous report of the Dairy Control. Board’s overseas delegation will engage the serious consideration of dairy companies. It contains valuable recommendations regarding the marketing of our dairy produce, and in conclusion emphasises, as has been so often emphasised before, the fact that New Zealand has to face fierce competition in the future, and also the great necessity for the adoption of scientific methods, such as the establishment of a laboratory,' etc. The report makes the suggestion that regular shipments of dairy produce might advantageously be made to Bristol, Manchester, Liverpool and Glasgow, as wall as to London. This proposal, if carried out, would no doubt be very beneficial to the producers in New Zealand and also to the consumer in Great Britain. But it remains to be seen whether an effective method of distributing shipments of our produce from the West of England ports among the retailers of those cities and to the large manufacturing towns inland can be devised or built up profitably. It is all very well to put forward these schemes, but they have not even the merit of novelty. The same suggestions have been advanced frequently in the past fifteen or twenty years as a means of benefiting the actual producer in this country, but invariably the project is abandoned or shelved for lack of convincing proof that it will not merely result in creating more highly paid jobs for middlemen—call them agents, advisers, retailers, or what you will. In furtherance of its marketing scheme the Board has decided on the establishment of a London office. Just ’who will have charge there, and the extent of his (or their) authority is the crux of the whole position. In certain usually well-informed quarters there is a disposition to plump for the personnel as follows: Mr J. B. Wright, at present London representative of the N.Z. Co-op. Dairy Co., Ltd.; Mr W. Claud Motion, chairman of directors of that company and a member of the Dairy Control Board, and Mr lorns (Wairarapa), a member of the Dairy Control Board. In other quarters it is believed that Mr P. J. Small (Manawatu), Dominion president of the Dairy Farmers’ Union, is a probable for either the London office or to fill one of the vacancies on the Dairy Control Board due to the appointment of either Mr Motion or Mr lorns to the London job. The whole position is distinctly interesting at the present juncture. Whether this will be the ultimate selection remains to be seen, but if it is so it should be a means of satisfaction to those interested principally in the “greatest co-opera-tive company in the world.” The recommendation that the Board should undertake the responsibility of all sales is certain to arouse considerable comment; in fact, it has already done so. There ,is evidence of considerable division of opinion amongst dairy farmers on this perplexed problem. It is refreshing to learn that the Wellington Dominion is alarmed at the proposal. In commenting on the overseas delegates’ report in general, and this aspect in particular, it says: “If we read this proposal correctly, it means that the Dairy Produce Control Board is recommended by the delegation to take the sweeping step of compelling the whole of’ the dairyproducers of the Dominion to dispose of their produce through the Board. In other words, that this newly-creat-ed Board with little or no experience of distributive marketing, and with practically no organisation at its disposal, should assume all the functions of the complex, highly organised, and more or less competitive agencies which at present handle our dairy produce exports. This is, to say the least, a staggering proposal. It in a measure gives justification to those who opposed the dairy control scheme on the ground that it involved the possibility of some such hasty and illconsidered step, bringing incalculable injury to the dairying industry. At present there is competitive buying of dairy produce in this country by various agencies in touch with the British market. If co-operative factories or other producing concerns are not satisfied w*ith the prices offering, they have the option of consigning their output, and taking the chances of the British market. It is, of course, open to the Dairy Export Control Board to effect great improvements in existing marketing conditions, in the first instance by regulating shipments and so ensuring regularity and continuity of supplies, but the proposal at this early stage to scrap virtually the whole of the commercial machinery through which our dairy producers have been marketing their products must occasion the producers and the public the gravest concern.” The Dominion adds: “It may be hoped that the Dairy Produce Control Board, or the producers by whom it i 6 elected, will decisively reject this particular proposal of the overseas delegation.”