The Hokitika Guardian THURSDAY, OCT. 5th, 1922. THE DAIRY POOL.

Hokitika Guardian, 5 October 1922, Page 2

The Hokitika Guardian THURSDAY, OCT. sth, 1922. THE DAIRY POOL.

Tuk decontrol oi wury produce "os i,,e last or many snn.lar examples o. official in.saMiul.ua, aim seived oikc moie to demonstrate toe futility oi attempting to maintain mass control over tile sale ol loorl-stnil's in this loantiy, says Weddel’s “Annual Review’’. Tne lessons of tli element past seem, however, to have been qineKly forgotten in some quarters; lor no sooner were tne evil consequences o' the British Governtnen's haiidling of butter revealed, than an attempt was made to induce, the New Zealand Government to create by Act of Parliament, a compulsory dairy pioduce pool. It was designed to concentrate the control of the whole of the Dominion’s output into the hands of a committee, with the lollowing avowed objects, viz.:—To regulate shipments; to open and develop markets other than London ; to advertise New Zealand butter and cheese; to control distribution with the object, of obtaining full market values; to stabilise markets by preventing congestion and speculation; to make advantageous freight contracts; to co-operate with Australia and Denmark in marketing. Most of these are laudable aims and have been attained in other trades by consent of all concerned, and without invoking the aid of legislation or compulsion of any kind. The promoters of the pool acting n > doubt in good faith, hut with incomplete knowledge of the difficulties to he faced, and with no practical experience of the conditions at this end of the world, wanted to apply a mistaken remedy to real and imaginary defects in the present methods of shipping and distributing. Their proposals were far too sweeping and revolutionary and somewhat in

the nature of “using a steam hammer to crack a nut’’: and the giandioso scheme failed to receive in New Zealand the support necessary for its fulfilment. There is now time to review the situation more calmly, i nd endeavour to evolve some scheme by which any apparent anomalies in shipping arrangements, freights, or congestion of stocks may he removed, or fresh departures made in opening new markets and advertising New Zealand produce. This can host ho done, however, by frank discussion, and wit’i the hc'p of all sections of the industry. It is useless to expect to achieve the best results bv force or by ignoring tradition and experience, and superimposing an entirely new syst? n upon an unwilling market entailing as it might well do, the destruction of some vital parts of the delicate mechanism of distribution. So far as prevev-.ng speculation is concerned, it may lie found impossible in any trade or in any market, to eliminate it entirely no matter how rigidly it may he controlled Indeed, it might he shov>. from the experience of Government control and of trade trusts, that speculation is often most rampant when a market conns under the control of a few individual. Forward sales of the season’s output, or the boiling up of large stocks by consigners, in the vain hope of selling everything at the top of the market, might he held to lie forms of speculation open to criticism. Much therefore depends upon what form of speculation is to bo [■•evented, but if any steps can be devised to stabilise n arliets. without ai the same time destroying initiative and hampering sale shv factories, London tradeis would gladly welcome then adoption. The proposal to co-operate with competing producing countries like Denmark, Australia and Canada, may l>e an ideal to he aimed at in the distant- future; hut at present it is only chimerical. If producers in New Zealand could he persuaded to forget the feelings of distrust which has been fostered in some quarters Trout not altogether disinterested motives, and would confer with the distributive end of tlio business instead of antagonising it. there would be more hope of finding real and permanent solutions for the various problems which at present beset the dairy produce trade.