H. BOND

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smother those from the larger Dominion. In a word, then, we have absolute and complete control without waiting for the Dairy Pool Bill. It is more than likely that this fact has not yet soaked into the minds of all the producers of dairy-products, for it is as unique as it is unexpected. The idea of a pool was to get control, but we have that already, and the fanners have the whole thing in their own hands, and if they are so desirous of getting rid of the local agent all they have to do is to cable to England to the different firms saying that they are going to deal direct and save the commission paid to the men here. The alternative, of course, would be no business for the firms who refused the new condition of things." My own factory is in a satisfactory financial position, but others around me are not in that good position, and the Associated Banks have turned them down when they have asked for assistance, although the farmers' stability was beyond question. And, gentlemen, the same Tooley Street horse-dealers lent them the balance over the bank advance, and at 3 per cent. I would draw your attention to the handsome trophies given by Tooley Street merchants to the different produce shows for competition between factories to encourage the raising of the standard of this Dominion's produce. I have here an article from Truth: " The Meat Board may be summed up as an inefficient, expensive, wasteful, and extravagant excrescence on the community." It goes on to say about the Meat Board spending a great deal of money : one man gets £2,750 a year. He is not the only one. I understand that out of an expenditure of £18,000 £14,000 has been expended in salaries and travelling-expenses. There is one good thing I have noticed. I think it is Mr. Forsyth or Mr. Jessep who is doing good work in looking into some business for the Packing Company. Some two years ago the Packing Company got very busy and came to us farmers and showed that we had been very unpatriotic in not supporting tho Packing Company. They appealed to mo, and I put some money into it, and lam now looking for that money. I have got a letter threatening me for the balance, but I see that there is a Bill before Parliament providing for the factories to be relieved of their liability to the Packing Company. I hope that will be done and relieve me too. For the Meat Control Bill great things were claimed, but, as that paper Truth says, the good things would have come in due course. Then we have been asking the Government for some years to reduce the freight on frozen meat on the railways—or at least the pastoralists have—and when the Meat Control Bill was passed a reduction in freights was made- £22,000— that when our railways were losing £3,000 a day. Now, coming to the wool business, there has been no control over that, and some three years ago the woolmen at Mastorton were right " down and out," and bankruptcy was staring them in the face. Well, to-day where are they ? I had a conversation with one of the biggest wool-men on the coast, and he told me that on one parcel of wool he received the biggest price he had ever received in NewZealand —even during the commandeering years. That shows how the wool business has recovered itself. We find that there is something like £12,000,000 worth of wool sold from this Dominion. Gentlemen, I maintain, and it has been claimed again and again by the Right Hon. Mr. Massey, that supply and demand must guide and govern tho world's markets. Gentlemen, I was offered a seat on the Dairy Council last Thursday night at about 7 p.m. My reply was emphatically " No, sir, never." We have had no quarrel with Tooley Street. They are gentlemen in their vocations of life. We sold cheese ten days off London without consulting our agents at all, and who had made 90 per cent, advances on store warrants. That means that we had an unfettered agreement and that we could dispose of our products as we liked. We sold the first consignment at 10fd., a record ; we sold it a bit too cheap, but still it was a paying proposition to us, and some of our settlers were hard up and we were making sure of a " bird in the hand." We sold a further shipment for lOd. per pound, and the same firm was still financing us. In two weeks cheese rose from B§d. to 9d., 9|d., and lOd. We sold f.o.b. Last year I lost £900 through consigning ; this year I have had my way, and I got a little bit back. The chairman of directors came to me and said, " What about selling ? " I said I would like to see a little bit more, and that we should hang on till we got 10|d. or lid. ; but he said he thought we would sell. In another fortnight we could have got 12|d. f.o.b. Another cheesefactory discussed selling at Is. The secretary pointed out where the produce was worth Is. 3d. in the London market, but then we were only a month off that London market, and they only got 9d. for it. That -is the result of being too greedy and trying to scrape the copper off the penny. We farmers have been too greedy. I have been associated in the butter business and I have done dealing, and it has always been my policy to accept a price when I thought it would pay me, and to let somebody else make a profit if they could. Gentlemen, we have been dubbed agitators. I submit to your wellbalanced and earnest consideration and good judgment that we are here doing a duty not only to ourselves but.to our children. It is on record, Sir George, that during England's feudal wars the enemy never broke through the gates of Lincoln Hill, and I am proud of the fact that my ancestors were responsible for throwing the tea into tho Boston Harbour. I have a duty to perform, and I pray the Most High to give me strength according to my conscience to do it straightly and uprightly. 3. Mr. Forbes.] You feel very strongly about this matter, Mr. Bond ? —I do. 4. You are quite satisfied that no good can come to you and your fellow-dairymen in the industry through this control Bill ? —I stand here and say that lam afraid that this experiment will be the breaking-up of the industry that I have helped to build for the past nineteen years. 5. Do you think that some improvement can be made in the matter of the trade involved in connection with the industry ? —There is nothing that cannot be improved. 6. Would you be willing that this Board should control the matter of shipping ? —lt is not a democratic way of dealing with anything. 7. You would favour something being done—you are only opposed to the marketing ? —I am opposed to the Bill, lock, stock, and barrel, and tell you to put it into the harbour and sink it. 8. Mr. Masters.] Supposing this Bill is to become law, Mr. Bond, do you think the present system of control satisfactory under the Bill ?—I do not. We have the National Dairy Association, and it has taken nine years to put them out of office.