THE DAIRY INDUSTRY.

Evening Star, Issue 22453, 25 September 1936, Page 8

THE DAIRY INDUSTRY.

It has been realised for some time that the dairy industry in New Zealand was badly in need of reorganisation. From year to year new problems associated with, various aspects of the work have made themselves manifest, resulting finally in the appointment of a commission to go thoroughly into the matter of creating a new system both for marketing purposes and for the establishment of more efficient preliminary methods of setting the profitmaking schemes in operation. Commissions as everybody knows, are quite expensive to run, and if their recommendations, or at least the most important of them, are not adopted those of the public who are interested in .the why and wherefore of national expenditure are apt to become restive and querulous and to demand explanations that are uncomfortable in the answering. A change of Government usually upsets some of the recommendations of a commission. In this respect the Dairy Commission of 1934 has suffered considerably. However, there is something for which it and those who believe in its findings will be thankful in the information that regulations have been issued conferring power on the Executive Commission of Agriculture to carry into effect certain recommendations of the Commission of 1934 dealing with the elimination of over-lapping in the collection of cream supplies. The system observed up till the present has been nothing if not loose, and, although some suppliers and receivers may experience incorfVenience for a short time after the change takes place, it must be apparent that any effort by way of amalgamation or centralisation must in the long run be desirable. In the collection of cream for the manufacture of butter the overlapping problem is more noticeable than in the case of the supply of milk to the cheese .factories.

Years ago factories and creameries were erected at points where whole milk from farms could conveniently be received. In the majority of instances these establishments have continued to exist, notwithstanding the revolutionary influence of the home-separation process, the evolution of motor transport, and the provision of better roads. Modern developments, it should be agreed, have paved the way for a change of system. From evidence heard by the Dairy Commission of 1934 it was adduced that butter-manu-facturing companies, in their anxiety to continue their operations, and under stress of competition, had been going beyond their own territories to obtain larger supplies of cream in order to secure increased outputs and thereby reduce their costs of manufacture. In a sense it had become a battle for existence—a battle ■which would have been prolonged indefinitely had this new power to create zones and define routes not been given to the Executive Commission of Agriculture. The cost of cream collection has also to be taken into consideration. This was an aspect of the position that was not neglected by the 1934 commission. A detailed inquiry covering the Manawatu' and Waikato dairying districts was carried out, it being thought that these two areas would provide reasonably typical examples from which general conclusions could be drawn in regard to possible savings by the rationalisation and the zoning methods of supply. It was ascertained that the rationalised system of transport would result in an annual saving of £11,980, or 21.5 per cent, and that the zoning system (which has been recommended) would effect a saving of £21,054. or 36.5 per cent, on the cost of the existing system. This, it was estimated, meant that when the figures were applied to the whole of the Dominion a total of £150,000 would be saved under the scheme for a zoned supply. The advantages of a change have been too obvious to miss.