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Hokitika Guardian, 17 March 1927, Page 2

Tt is to be hoped for the general bone- ; fit of the Dominion that the decision j of the Control Board to drop price-fix-ing for Now Zealand dairy produce will have the early effect of lifting the embargo on the butter ami cheese from this country offering on the Home markets. So far as the commodity from this country was concerned, there was an obvious crisis. Australian butter could be cleared at Home, but New Zealand could not ! The estimated loss to the farmers hero was set down at £2,000.000. Even if the estimate was approximate only, the loss was enormous. The fanners need a rise in prices, not a fall. The butter from New Zealand the previous season was worth something less than 0 millions, so that the loss was going to lie very farreaching. It was most serious that stores of butter were increasing at Home, as were supplies here—waiting shipment f <yr an improved market which did not seem likely to come. Such a position could not go on, and consequently the Government was bombarded with requests for decontrol. The Prime Minister was asked for a public statement, hut when it was given out it was very colourless, and afforded no satisfaction. But something evidently went on behind the scenes, for the members of the Board were forced to realise the position and by six votes to three agreed to drop price-fixing. It is rather regrettable that on a policy matter such as this the Board members could not le unanimous. The subject is all important, and personal views should be dropped for the national in-

t crests. The Board was warned in the past of the inevitable, namely that if would be most dangerous to antagonise tire English trade, that it was,dealing with middlemen who understood the butter business thoroughly, and that New Zealand supplied only a fraction of Britain’s needs and therefore had nothing like a monopoly of the market. The evidence went to show either that it had antagonised the trade or that if had blundered in handling buffer in London, or both. A disastrous mess had been made of the handling of our second most valuable product. The producer had nut his eggs into one basket, and the basket had been dropped. as an Exchange, put ii. It may lake a long time to remedy these mistakes, hut obviously the sooner something was done the better, and so we have a two to one majority of the Board ranking the attempt to retrieve the position. AVe take it that the majority of the members deemed if necessary to drop compulsion, and wisely did so. Had ibis step not been taken as a means to retrieve the .situation, there would have been an insistent demand for the suggestion by Air Veitvli to come to pass, namely to call a special session of Parliament to deal with the matter so important was the whole subject. Parliament, at the behest of the Government put too much power in the hands of the Control Board, and a revision of the position will he necessary in any case when in the ordinary'course Parliament meets iu June next.