"BEST BUSINESS GENIUS IN DOMINION!"

Shannon News, 17 April 1925, Page 4

"BEST BUSINESS GENIUS IN DOMINION!"

Professor Theo. Macklin, of the University of Wisconsin. holds ul New Zealand dairy farmers as an example to their American cousins. In addressing the eleventh annual meet, ing of the Federation of Cheese Producers, at Plymouth Wisconsin he explained that New Zealand is 1200 miles east of Australia, composed o three little islands, away out in tht Pacific, the total area of which is a little less than twice the area of Wisconsin. "What we are trying to get at is how have 45,000 farmers in this little country south of the equator developed co-operative marketing system for butter and cheese? What can we learn by experience from New Zealand which we might apply in Wisconsin?" . . n The country is rough and hillj, continued Professor Macklin. There is • land that runs u P to 12,000 feet The highest in Wisconsin is 1200 feet. If we have it rough, they have it ten times as rough. Only two-thirds of New Zealand, 43,000,000 acres, is in farms. The average dairy farm is about 162 acres, about the same as Wisconsin. Only one-seventh is used for dairying. The reason is that New Zealand being a mountainous country, the dairy farms are down in the bottom lands and river valleys. Ihey pasture their cows the year around. Their feed is home-grown. They have a considerable advantage over us i the matter of producing feed and turning it into dairy products, lhere is another difference. They live in a mild climate. In their houses they do not even have furnaces. They do not have barns, and if a cold snap comes, they blanket their cows. New Zealand has 515 dairy factories. Of that numher 515 are butter factories, 295 are cheese factories, and the rest are factories that make both butter and cheese. They have some dairy factories (about 79) that make so much cheese, 800,0001 b per factory, that they can skim their whey and make their own whey butter. Conditions in their factories are very different from in ours. Back in lasu they had not more than five private dairy factories. In 1881 the first cooperative factories (two) were started In 1893 there were 109 factories, 4u per cent, co-operative. In 1924, 89.5 per cent were co-operative. They were managed by farmers who employ business managers who hire cheesemakers. It gives the cheese- , makers a .square deal .also the farmers Wisconsin co-operatives fall down on hiring business managers. New Zealand co-operatives are managed by the best business genius in New Zealand—Mr William Goodfellow, added Professor Macklin. The federation does a 5,500,000 dollars business. The organisation in New Zealand *s just four times as • big and has one-half as many dairy cows as Wisconsin.

Keynote of Success. The keynotes of the success of the New Zealand co-operatives are:— 1. They grade every gallon of milk received at a factory when received. The system in Wisconsin is giving dairy farmers 100 per cent, for the rottenest 'milk turned into a cheese factory. t 2. They pay for quality. They will not buy one pound of milk that is ungraded; then they pay on the basis of duality. 3. Management. No co-operative enterprise can run in competition with private business without following business principles There is going to be no real co-operative success in Wisconsin until you hire the Qther fellow's best help. New Zealand Marketing System. The Government of New Zealand has a grading system. Started in 1892. They put grading marks on all products. The system has developed to such an extent that .the merchants in London buy by Government grades instead of inspection. If a wholesaler is selling more cheese and getting better prices ,than another, they give him cheese in preference to the other. Thus the wholesalers are competing against each other to get the cheese. About two years ago, after tea years of effort, the dairyman of New Zealand got the Government to pass a law The resolution as drawn up by them was somewhat as follows: —"Whereas for ten years private competition has refused to grade and pay for quality, let us go together and by one unified sales system stamp out these evils." A council, composed of nme representatives of the dairy industry, two Government appointees, and one private middleman, is devising the system. "These men travelled through Wisconsin recently. They went back on the ship on which Dean Russell and I went to New Zealand," remarked Professor Macklin. "Just to provehow conservative they are one of thorn was in the same cabin with us, and it was fourteen days before we got acquainted with him. These men will not take any steps that they will have to retrace." _ -

Wisconsin System. The cheese federation was the greatest foundation the State had got for co-operation, "but a foundation is not a house," said the Professor. "You can freeze to death lying on a foundation. You can be blown away by every wind that comes along-. You have to put a well-rounded business system in. You have an unexcelled organisation as far as it goes. There is no business rn the State that is handled in a more demoralised way than the cheese business of Wisconsin Unequalled for warmth and comfort —Shetland Wool Camisoles, elastic waist, round neck, lace trimmed, short and no sleeves. Short sleeve, W. 5/9, O.S. 5/11 no sleeve W. 5/6, O.S. 5/9 —Collinson and Cunninghame. The cheese federation has built a foundation. It has some of the finest men in the State in it. Why do you not bring it out ? Build it up ? Meet opposition with facts ? Make these false stories bury themselves 'with lack of enthusiasm or chuck them out of the way ? Your factories are one-third of the siz s they ought to be. You hava men in there that you are trying to

make business men when they are only cheesemakers. You ought to have factories that pay a cheesemaker decent wages. "Your competitors are running away with you because the farmers of the State do not appreciate business. The directors cannot do what you will not lot them do. This is a democratic institution, and it is up to each one of you to see that it succeeds."