EXPORT CONTROL BILL.

Hauraki Plains Gazette, Volume XXXIV, Issue 4608, 1 October 1923, Page 2

EXPORT CONTROL BILL.

(To the Editor.) Sir, —There has been a long and bitter campaign of obstruction — waged by middlemen and proprietary interests in the dairy world —against the principles of the above Bill., just as there were strong outbursts of indignation by the same sort of interests when the Meat Control Pool was organised. It is strange how little wo hear of the harm the Meat Control Pool has done ; but we do hear —and it has been proved—-of the enormous good the Meat Control Bill has done for our meat producers in New Zealand. At the present moment every meat grower or producer is anxiously waiting for the Dairy Export Control Bill to become a fact, The position then will be that the combined meat and dairy produce will be grouped for purposes of freight, etc.; and there will be over 500,000 tons of the two products. With such a vast tonnage of cargo it will be a simple matter for those in control of this produce to make bargains and obtain concessions in freight, insurance, etc., alone, that will put hundreds of thousands, if not millions, back in the pockets of our primary producers. It is strange that while all the hostile critics of the farmers (and the fariners’ efforts to co-operate or combine) never fail to prophesy woe and tribulation, yet not one of these critics can suggest any better plan for reducing the present ruinous freights and losses endured by the unorganised farming industries. This is the age of combines the farmer has to carry and pay for. Shipping combines, the greatest today the world has ever seen ; then we have banking combines to keep up the dearness of money ; millers’ combines, merchants’ associations, and so on ad lib. Yet if the farmer determines to have a mild combine of his own for shipping and marketing his produce all the above and other gentry who live and wax fat off the producer raise an uproar, and also make every effort by fair means or foul to destroy Mr Farmer’s combine. Happily we have too sane a class of farmer in New Zealand to be bluffed for ever by the above clique, and the popular win the Dairy Export Control Bill will have at the producers’ hands is an augury that, when the farmers really combine, will leave no room far-’ competitors. SV.D.K.