AGRICULTURISTS’ WORRIES

Dominion, Volume 14, Issue 205, 25 May 1921, Page 5

AGRICULTURISTS’ WORRIES

MARKETING THEIR PRODUCE. z. A point made by Mr. W. J. Polson, president of tho Wellington Provincial Blanch of tho Farmers’ Union, in his address at Masterton yesterday, was that the producers of the Dominion should aim at the control not only of the shipping, but the marketing of their produce, much: in the manner of their competitors. "As you know,” he added, “some of us were interested some years ago in the formation and development of a small farmers’ organisation with a very limited capital, which was engaged in the selling <ff New Zealand produce on a commission buris to the retailer at the English end, doing without the middleman entirely. The association I refer to began in a very small way, and grow so rapidly that it had a number of distributing depots, and those who used it found it satisfactorily disposing of the powerful middlemen group in London so far as they were concerned. It failed not because of the unprofitableness of this legitimate business, but Tjecause the managoment launched out into a speculative business of another kind just before the slump.” It would, -he continued, be ridiculously easy to obtain a much larger capital than this organisation had in New Zealand. and to proceed on similar, if not identical lines. If a representative committee were set up by the union to draft a scheme modelled on some such plan, each executive could father it in its own province, and in turn set up strong committees whose main work would be to canvass their own provinces fcT financial support. The organisation would, of course, handle any produce which might be offered, but special rebates could bo given to members of the union, end in many cases special concessions might bo obtained from farmers' freezing companies, pnj eventually from shipping companies in both the refrigeration and carriage of the Dominion’s meat and butter. '