DAIRY CONTROL

Evening Post, Volume CXII, Issue 96, 20 October 1926, Page 5

DAIRY CONTROL

RIGHTS OF THE BOARD

LEGAL ARGUMENT CONTINUED

DEFINITIONS OF OAVNER AND PRODUCER.

The hearing of the application by the Waitaki Dairy Company, Limited, for an injunction to restrain the Dairy Produce Control Board from assuming control of dairy produce manufactured for export from milk or cream purchased outright from the producers, and from selling or disposing of such produce, was continued yesterday afternoon before the Full Court. Sir John Findlay, counsel for the plaintiff company, submitted that: (1) It was the producer who benefited by the Act._ (2) that the board was, in fact, a milk and cream suppliers' board; (3) that the dairy produce referred to throughout the .Act was dairy produce belonging to those milk and cream suppliers; (4) that the Act contemplated the producers supplying their milk and cream to a factory which, as agent to the producers, converted it into dairy produce; (5) that those producers were owners of that dairy produce, and were so referred to throughout the Act; (6) that it was only such producers' dairy produce that the board could take control of, and that, as a corollary, if the producers preferred to sell their milk and cream outright to a proprietary fl.iiry factory, the board had no control over the dairy produce manufactured out of such milk and cream. Counsel went on to refer at length to a case in Queensland last year in which Robson's, Ltd., and others challenged the right of the Committee of Direction of Fruit Marketing to control growers' produce. Ho pointed out that it had been- held that the committee had exceeded its powers under the statute in taking the business of selling fruit and vegetables out of the hands of the growers and the agents selected by them, and disposing of such produce itself. A majority of the Full Court, when the .matter was taken before-it, had refused to interpret the statute in such a way as to destroy private rights, and he would ask the Court in the present case to adopt the same attitude when it came to a close consideration of what the Dairy Control Act meant. PROTECTION OE PRIVATE RIGHTS. Sir John said he was citing the case to show how strenuously the Judiciary resisted an interpretation of a statute which involved the invasion or destruction of private rights., Counsel said that he desired respectfully to impress upon the Court an illustration of how Judges would, as far as they conscientiously could, turn their faces against an interpretation which destroyed or invaded private rights for compensation. If the suppliers chose to sell outright their milk and cream, then they lost all the benefits intended in the Act. By selling to a proprietary company, they lost their character as producers within the definition of section 3 of the Act. Mr. Justice Ostler: "Then they have the right to share in the whole of the profits of the concern, less reasonable expenses?"—"lt is not a sale. The sale I refer to is a sale outright." His Honour: "You don't say so to your suppliers." Sir John Findlay: "The circular to which your Honour is referring should, be read with others. The circular stated that they were the biggest buyers of milk and cream in the district, and would pay as well as any other company." His Honour: "And they had a system which was a co-operative system." Counsel said that he intended to deal with that point at a later stage.. ON BEHALF OF THE PRODUCERS. Dealing with the Dairy Produce Control Act, Sir John said its direct aim was lo benefit the of milk and cream to dairy factories. Producers were defined as persons carrying on business as suppliers of milk and cream to dairy factories for export. The Act could only be brought into operation with the consent of the majority of the suppliers, and it was submitted that it was thus essentially a milk and cream producers' Act. If the purpose of the Act was to benefit the milk and cream suppliers by obtaining for them a larger result from the sale of their produce, that necessitated the producers remaining the owners of the dairy products manufactured out of their milk and cream. The dairy factory wasmerely the agent of the suppliers of milk and cream. He contended that the producers of milk and cream remained the owners of the manufactured produce until it was sold. The Act contemplated that clearly, as it aimed at benefiting producers alone, and not the middlemen. Sir John pointed out that the Act referred to "owners of dairy produce," but that "owners" was not defined; he contended that the word meant the. producers. j Mr. . Justice Ostler said that surely the producer could not be said to be the owner of the produce after it was supplied to a co-operativo company. Counsel submitted that one of the fundamental principles of the co-opera-tive company was that the supplier remained the owner. The co-operative concern merely handled the produce on behalf of the supplier; Sir John submitted that the earlier control measure, the Meat Export Control Act, showed conclusively *hat it was the producer and the producer alone whose benefit was aimed at by the Act. Mr. Justice Reed: "Who are the producers referred to in the preamble of that Act?" Sir John argued that it was the producer of the animal. He quoted from the Oxford Dictionary the meaning of the word "producer," one who produces, brings forth, makes or causes. Mr. Justice Ostler: "That would apply to people who produced meat from livo carcasses by slaughtering them." Counsel: "I submit not." The producers, he contended, were the persons who were referred to in all sections of tho Meat Export Control Act as the owners. Sir John Findlay argued that neither the Meat Export Control Act nor the Dairy Produce Control Act was intended to apply to produce sold outright or disposed of in a lawful way by the producer as his own property. BOARD'S CASE OPENED. In opening his case on behalf of the Dairy Produce Control Board, Mr. A. AY. Blair said he had difficulty in seeing on what grounds Sir John Fiiidlay rested his case. The real case, he contended, depended on tho strained construction of the Act. The whole purpose of the statute was the export of dairy produce, and the question of control was limited to export control, yet opposing counsel had kept on referring to the manufacture of the producer's milk and cream. Mr. Blair maintained that the board was not concerned with the producers, but merely with the export of the produce. So far as the Act was concerned, the terms "proprietary dairy" and "co-operative dairy" were not known. The only term that was known under the Act was "a factory manufacturing dairy produce for export." The question of the producer was only of importance so far as the franchise was concerned. Tho producers had two franchises—the first as

to when the Act should come into operation and the second in the matter of deciding who was to be the producers' representative on the board. When that was finished with the definition of producer was exhausted so far as the Act was concerned. After that it was all a matter of dairy produce— the articles made from tho milk and cream supplied. Up to the point of export the produce was not under control. It might pass through a number of hands. But when it came to export control became operative. At this stage the Court adjourned until to-day.