MILK SUPPLY.

Press, Volume LXIII, Issue 19174, 3 December 1927, Page 16

MILK SUPPLY.

PROPOSED MUNICIPAL

SCHEME.

CITIZENS' ASSOCIATION DISCUSSION.

The proposed municipal milk supply was discussed at a meeting held last night in the Chamber of Commerce under the auspices of the Citizens' Association. There was a good attendance, including a considerable number of those directly interested iu the dairying industry. Mr V. J. Sim, chairman of the general committee of the Association, presided. "A Good Supply." Cr. A. W. Beavcn said that lie was opposed wholeheartedly to the scheme, one reason being that he did not consider there was a big demand for it. Most of the agitation had come from one man, who was possibly aided by the Mayor. Ho thought that the milk supply of Christchurch was as good as that of any other city in the world. The old Council were doing the very best that could be done to improve the milk supply of Christchurch, when the new Council came into office and proposed to municipalise tho supply. Tho Council was "bull-dozed" into approving of the scheme. At present the City was unable to afford the staff necessary to carry out the scheme, and the City Council had to find £3OOO annually for its superannuation and £GOO a year for its sick fund. It seemed to him that private enterprise was being too greatly encroached upon. Thero were too many officials on the Council's staff today and not sufficient producers. ' 'Ridiculous Statements. '' Mr H. Bliss, of the Sealed Bottlo Vendors' Association, said that several of tho Labour Councillors had made ridiculous statements concerning the milk supply of the City. He thought that those Councillors were moro concerned with the matter in so far as it affected their politics than with any other aspect of the question. Over £12,000 had been spent by dairymen supplying Christchurch on sheds and improvements to their yards. They had also lost a large sum in respect of the cows which had been condemned under a system of tuberculin testing. Mr Bliss considered that not enough credit had been given to tho old Council, which was composed mainly of Citizens' Association representatives, for what had been done to improvo tho milk supply. It had been shown at that time that 80 per cent, of the milk supply of Christchurch was of A grade under the British Regulations. The Mayor had recently opened a laboratory established by the dairymen and yet at a later meeting of the City Council, stated that the dairymen were doing nothing to improve the piyA voice; Consistent!

Proceeding, Mr Bliss said that Mr R. E. Herron, manager of the Wellington Municipal supply, had written reports on municipal supplies for different towns, but they were the same except that the names of the towns concerned were altered. A voice: He has p never milked a cow in his life. Day of Beckoning. Mr Bliss said that a day of reckoning was coming to the Mayor and Labour Councillors for what they had said concerning dairymen, and they would know all about it at the next Municipal election. Mr J. Parlane, president of the Christchurch Dairymen's Association, said that the present Council was not sincere politically; they were, in fact, politically dishonest for the purpose of misleading the public. Regarding Cr. Clyde Carr, chairman of the. Milk Committee of the Council, Mr Parlane said that Cr. Oarr had said he would welcome any reasonable alternative to municipalisation of the milk supply. Although it had been agreed that the report presented to the Council would be kept secret and confidential the Mayor proceeded to make political propaganda out of it. The Mayor stated that when the report was made public it would shock the' citizens of Christchurch. "I might say that I was shocked at the class o£ man who got on the City Council,'' added Mr Parlano, who went on to state that later he received a copy of the report from Cr. Carr with his compliments. "Am I right in saying he is not sincere?" he asked. Mr Parlane said that ho had never seen any letters in the newspapers condemning the milk supply of the City and maintained that the Council had never given the dairymen credit for their efforts to improve the supply. The Mayor had said, he went on, that the Council was there to discourage private enterprise. He quoted from newspaper reports to show that similar views had been expressed by other Labour Councillors. The chairman said that it would not be necessary for the speaker to go into the question in too great detail. It could be referred to the general committee of the Association, and the matter could then be dealt with more fully. Dr. Telford's Views. Dr. T. F. Telford, Medical Officer of Health, Baid that as one of those who had made investigations into the milk supply, he would state that 56.8 of the milk supplied in Christchurch was found to be very good, 23.1 good, 11.6 fair, and 8.1 poor. He considered that those whose milk was found to be poor could improve it to such an extent as to become good, and that the whole supply could with little difficulty be brought to a condition which could be described as excellent. He had endeavoured to get figures to show what improvement, if any, had taken place in Wellington since the supply was municipalised, but no figures were available. He quoted figures to show that pasteurisation of milk was unnecessary. He was not present, he said, to boost one party at the expense of the other, but to state the position regarding the local milk supply. The supply, during the last five years, particularly, had been steadily improved. Dr. C. J. Reakes'had stated that the dairying conditions in and around Christchurch were the best of nil the cities in the Dominion. In Wellington, 2500 gallons of cream had been sold last year. He considered that this was wrong and that the public' should be able to "break down" the milk they purchased according to their palates.

Bacteria in Milk. Dr. A. B. Pearson, also a member of the committee, who had reported on the local milk supply, said that there was always bacteria in milk, no matter how fresli it was. Bacteria throve on milk. They increased at a remarkable rate, dividing into two instead of seeking a partner and thus increasing their"families. The lack of care in the household was a big factor in the increase of bacteria in milk. Some bacteria, it should be realised, were beneficial, but there was an undesirable group of bacteria which poisoned the milk. To a great extent, however, these were kept in check by other bacteria. Then there was the group of bacteria which could l>e classed as dangerous, such as tubercle

bacteria. In 1914 he visited a -number of dairies around Christchurch and found some of them to be bad, but a recent inspection had convinced him that they were now generally excellent. He thought that this was due to the attention paid to the instructions issued by the authorities. There were numbers of coolers in Christchurch dairies, but they were few and far between in Dunedin; in fact, ho had been told that one dairyman had an excellent round there because he was able to deliver his milk warm.' (Laughter.) Dairymen were now coming forward and asking to have their herds tested by the tuberculin test. Could anything be better than that? Regarding pasteurisation, ho stated that it did not kill putrefactive bacteria. Even after pasteurisation, bacteria were able to get into the milk. As much good could be obtained by boiling milk in a homo as by pasteurising it. A recent survey had shown an improvement of 11 per cent, over the last survey made. He thought that while a municipal supply might be ideal for Wellington it was not needed in Christchurch. If proper attention were given to the matter by the dairymen themselves, the supply would continue to improve.

Socialism. Cr. 31. E. Lyons said that there were people who said at the time of the last municipal election that the Citizens Association candidates were making too much of the cry of Socialism regarding the Labour candidates, but it was Socialism that the present Council was endeavouring to carry out concerning the supply. He considered that the report made by Mr Herron, and the views expressed by the Labour Councillors were grossly unfair to the dairymen of Christchurch. The Labour Councillors did not know their minds on the matter for 25 minutes. A report supplied by Mr Herron to the Council was still considered as confidential, but if the public desired to read it, all they would have to do was to look up the files of a Timaru newspaper and read the word Christchurch for Timaru. The only piece of common sense that he had heard from tho Labour Councillors concerning the question came from Cr. H. T. Armstrong on one occasion, when he warned the Council that there was very little chance of any such Bill going through Parliament as the House was at present constituted provided that the dairymen did not fall down on their jobs. Cr. Lyons would admit that there had been a real need Wellington for an improved milk supply, but maintained that the Christchurch supply was a good one. and therefore did not require any scheme of municipalization. The Mayor had some wonderfully unpractical ideas on the milk supply; so had most of the Labour Councillors, who had no idea of what they were up against in suggesting the setting up of a municipal supply.

Customers Against Change. A dairyman said that he had taken a survey of his 200 customers, and found that not five per cent., of them were in favour of a change over to municipalisation. Mr W. E. Leadley. an ex-City Councillor, moved: (a) That this general meeting of the Christchurch Citizens' Association emphatically protests against any further extension of municipal trading (b) that the proposal of the Christchurch Dairymen's Association and the Sealed Bottle Milk Vendors' Association for the improvement of the Christchurch milk supply be referred to the general committee for investigation. This was seconded by Mr A. F. Carey, but when H was suggested to him that the Association should concentrate on the milk supply so far as the present meeting was concerned Mr Leadley agreed to delete the first portion of the motion, and in this form it was carried.