DAIRY PRODUCE POOL.

Waikato Times, Volume 98, Issue 15309, 9 August 1923, Page 5

DAIRY PRODUCE POOL.

POWERS OF THE BOARD. UNFETTERED DISCRETION., EXTRAORDINARY PROPOSALS. Bf Telegraph.—Special to Times. WELLINGTON, Wednesday. The most striking contribution to the controversy over the Dairy Produce Export Control Bill that has yet appeared in print, was featured in the Evening Post, last night. Its phraseology suggests a legal mind behind it, but its points arc made easily intelligible to the layman. "Clause 3 of the Bill," the writer states, "proposes to establish a Control Board consisting of eleven members, of whom two are to bo appointed by the Government, and nine to be elected by the producers, the manner of the election being left to regulations to, he made by the Government later on. A twelfth member of the Board may be added as representing persons for the time being engaged in business as manufacturers of dairy produce, or as sellers of such produce out of New Zealand. Clause 12 empowers that board at its own sweet will at any time to assume control, absolute or limited, according to its unfettered discretion, of all or any of the butter and cheese produced in New Zealand, and intended for export. The board may, if it chooses, exercise discrimination by assuming absolute control of the dairy produce belonging to one or more owners, leaving all other owners to deal with their produce as they think fit in the ordinary course of business." So much for the discrimination given to the Board. »

Helpless Owners.

Then the writer explains what may happen to the owner, who, in all good faith, has purchased dairy produce in the ordinary course of business. "Any produce of which the Board assumes absolute control," he says, "shall be sold and disposed of" only by the Board, or by the direction of the Board, at such times and in such manner and ,on such terms as the Board in its' discretion determines. That is to say, the owner of the produce of which the Board has assumed such control is no longer permitted to dispose of his property, and has no voice whatever in the manner or terms of its disposal or the price at which it is sold,. He may have purchased the produce from producers' manufacturing companies, yet, at any rate if the purchase is made' after August 31, 1924, the right •of disposal of his goods is taken away from him, and given back, in effect, to the very producers who have sold the produce to him, and have absolutely disposed of their interest in it; because the Board is composed almost entirely.of representatives of the producers." And this by no means ends the unfortunate owner's troubles.

No Appeal. The Bill provides that the Board in its co-operate capacity shall be deemed to be the agent of the owner of all produce of which the Board has assumed control and that the mutual rights, obligations and liabilities of the Board and the several owners shall accordingly be determined in accordance with the law governing the. relations between principals and agents. But even this provision is qualified.

'Save," its concluding sentence runs, "that nothing herein shall be construed to limit the power of the Board to exercise without the authority of the owner of any dairy produce, any power with respect to such, dairy produce that may expressly or by implication be confered oS the Board by or by virtue of this Act." Worse even than all this, according to the writer in the "Post," is the provision by which a Einglc owner might be compelled to pay not only the cost of disposing of his own produce, but also a large part or even the whole of the cost of carrying on the spacious operations of the Board. IJere he quotes clause 15 of the Bill, which seems to bear out to the full his contention.

Dangers of Compulsion. The "Post" itself after recalling the disastrous results of Queensland's attempt at dairy pooling speculates upon the probable outcome of a similar experiment hero. "There will be egg' pools, fruit pools, honey pools, all," it says, "in the direction of keeping up prices and making the cost of living higher. And there is another aspect of the pooling of dairy produce that must not be regarded as unworthy of consideration —possible retaliation on the part of those who will distribute the produce in the overseas markets. The Government is being asked in this Dairy Produce Control Bill to endorse a'huge butter and cheese combination. Unless such a combine can link up with the English, Welsh, Irish, Australian, Canad.an, Danish, and Argentine dairy producing interests, it will over be exposed to the risks of severe, possibly ruinous, competition from foreign countries, in which for the sake of its own food supplies, Great Britain will be compelled to acquiesce." This, of course, is the great peril the promoters of the New Zealand dairy pool are inviting, and the one, it would seems, they are ignoring. It is significant that the Prime Minister is much less keen than his colleague the Minister of Agriculture is about the compulsory clauses or the Bill and it still is possible his sagacity may bring about some modification of the controversial clauses of the Bill.