MILK SUPPLIED TO CHEESE FACTORY

Press, Volume LXXXII, Issue 24903, 17 June 1946, Page 6

MILK SUPPLIED TO CHEESE FACTORY

MAGISTRATE RESERVES DECISION

(P.A.) PALMERSTON N., June 15. When charged in the Palmerston North Magistrate’s Court with breaches of the Dairy Supply Control Order, in that he supplied milk to a cheese factory instead of cream to a butter factory as directed, Robert Keith Parker, dairy farmer, offered the defence that he was unable to keep pigs and also that he was unable to separate cream because of insufficient plant. The Magistrate (Mr C. C. Marsack, S.M.) reserved his decision. ’ "• The Pahiatua Co-operative Dairy Company, Ltd., the cheese factory supplied, was also charged with breaches of the same order, in that they aided and abetted Park by taking his milk. The Magistrate said he would also require time to give his decision in this case. The prosecution was conducted by Mr J. W. Rutherford, for the Dairy Division of the Department of Agriculture. He said Parker sent all his milk to the Pahiatua cheese factory. in defiance of the department. The reason for the prosecution was that the butter supply had to be kept up and, as a balance had to be maintained between butter and cheese, it was for the department to say which product the farmer was to produce. Mr W. G. Cunningham, representing the defendant, described the direction given under the so legally, bad that, it was not a direction at all. Opening the case against the dairy company for taking milk from Parker, Mr Rutherford said the management indicated to the department that they were prepared to continue taking milk until the regulations had been tested in Court. Mr Cunningham submitted that there was no evidence that the company told. Parker to produce milk. The butter factory would not take his milk, therefore Parker was entitled to take his milk to the cheese factory. The Magistrate thanked counsel for 'making “the tortuous path through the regulations a little clearer.”