DAIRY PRODUCE CONTROL BOARD.

Waikato Times, Volume 100, Issue 16814, 4 June 1926, Page 8

DAIRY PRODUCE CONTROL BOARD.

(To the Editor.) Sir,—Before the Dairy Produce Control Act was brought into force it was first submitted to a referendum of the dairy farmers, and the basis of voting at the referendum was one producer one vote. The Act also provides that nine members of the Dairy Control Board shall be elected by the dairy farmers from lime to time and that each producer shall have one vote. Although Ihc Dairy Control Board has come into existence on this basis, the chairman of the board (Mr Grounds) is now very anxious that the method of voting should be altered. In the first place he- wants lo grade the value of each producer’s vote according to t.hc number of cows lie is milking. • If, for instance, one farmer is milking 200 cows and his neighbour only 20, the former is to have ten times the voting strength of the smaller man. When asked for his reason, ho slates that the former contributes an annual levy to the board ten times as great as the smaller man and should therefore have voting strength accordingly. But that is not all: like Oliver Twist, he comes hack and asks for more. Instead of allowing the producers to exercise Hieir votes individually, he wants them to allow their factory directors to do tho voting for them, as it will, in his opinion, get a simpler and better rcfleciion of the feeling of t.hc industry. In all seriousness lie is asking Parliament to do these things. Although the board already has the power to compulsorily seize and sell a man’s goods against his wishes, it now wants to be able to do so without that man being able to register his individual vote against the board’s action. The whole thing is preposterous, and yet Mr Grounds has just authorised the issue of the board’s monthly newspaper to over 50,000 dairy farmers, endeavouring to point out that a majority of the industry wants these things done. By the industry he means the quantity of butter and cheese exported; but he must be again reminded that the dairying industry does not consist of so much, butter and cheese, but of some 50,000 genuine dairy farmers, and that over two-thirds of them definitely want to retain the right of voting- for their own member on the board. Although there is not the slightest chance of Parliament granting Mr Grounds’ requests, why is it that he is so anxious to alter the present democratic method of election? Is it because he is afraid of. the next by-election in . August, which will show plainly what the pioduccrs are thinking of the board’s compulsory marketing scheme? —Wft arc, etc., FREE JiLARKETING LEAGUE.