The Wanganui Herald (Published Daily.) WEDNESDAY, JANUARY 28, 1920. THE DRIED MILK INDUSTRY.

Wanganui Herald, Volume LIII, Issue 16035, 28 January 1920, Page 4

The Wanganui Herald (Published Daily.) WEDNESDAY, JANUARY 28, 1920. THE DRIED MILK INDUSTRY.

We desire to commend the Goverhment on the recent issue o£ an Order-in-Council prohibiting the export of preserved milk, condensed milk, and dried milk, save with the consent of the Minister of Customs on the recommendation of the Board of Trade. It may, perhaps, be pointed out that, while the issue of an Order-in-Council is one thing, its administration is sometimes quite another, and we trust the Government will be uncompromisingly firm in considering the country's welfare in this matter rather than that of the vested interests concerned in it. Of course, the Government’s action will not be popular either with the mercantile concerns or the dairy farmers engaged in the dried or condensed milk industry. At the same time, this particular industry is attended by consequences that few, if any, foresaw at the time it was inaugurated, and which the general population knows practically nothing about. For one thing, there is no return of skim milk from the dried milk factory, so the farmer engaged in it, having nothing to feed calves or pigs with, drops raising the latter, and knocks on the head all calves except those required for keeping up his herd. This involves no loss to the dairy farmer, as the high price he gets from the dried-milk factory more than counter-balances any loss on calves and pigs. Again, where an industry is so profitable to those engaged in it, it is bound to extend, and its extension is sure, in course of time, to lead to many pastures being utilised for dried-milk dairying, in place of stock raising. It requires no great degree of intelligence to perceive how all this will tend to create a meat and bacon shortage, if, indeed, it has not operated in that direction already. Another phase that has to be considered is the effect on the land. Dairying, as is well known, exhausts the soil fgr more rapidly than stock raising. Still, in milking for the butter or cheese factory, at least something is returned to the land per medium of the young- stock or the pigs. In dried-milk dairying, however, nothing goes back. The careful farmer’s annual fertiliser bill is, therefore, going to be bigger, but unfortunately there ard' quite a number wha aim at taking all they can off the land prior to selling out at an enhanced price, and who put as little fertiliser into their farms as possible, and dried-milk dairying will tend to make matters worse in this respect, rather than better. Yet another phase is the effect a large extension of dried-milk dairying will have on butter and cheese manufacture and markets. The new industry has only to extend sufficiently to make butter and cheese making die out, for no farmer will willingly milk for the latter purpose if- he can get double or treble the price for his milk from the dried-milk factory. The ultimate result will Be that, instead of being an exporter of butter and cheese, this country will have to import it, and the consumer, besides having to use the imported article, will have to pay a higher price for it. Even if sufficient butter and cheese factories remain to Supply our own local markets, the price will still go up. Then, again, as everyone knows, the dried-milk industry is having a great effect in raising the price of land, as reports from the Waikato, for instance, testify, and this is going to make the problem of settlement still more difficult. It may be accepted as true that no industry, however profitable ro those engaged in it, is worth having if its operation is going to be disastrous to the general welfare of the country. We do not suggest, of course, that the dried or condensed milk industries should be abolished. Their products are too convenient to many people for that to be done. At the same time the local demand for them is limited, and it would seem a wise policy to shorten its output to meet the local demand. The argument would not be so applicable if there were no other issues involved. But when its extension threatens a meat shortage, increased prices for butter and cheese, and perhaps even the importation of these, to say nothing of the probably accelerated impoverishment of the soil, and a further rise in the price of land, it is evident that the dried-milk industry needs strict regulation and control. That appears to be the view the Government is taking, and we hope it will keep the control as tight as possible whatever pressure may be brought to bear upon it.