THE DAIRY INDUSTRY

Taranaki Daily News, Volume LIII, Issue 281, 20 April 1911, Page 3

THE DAIRY INDUSTRY

AN APPEAL TO DAIRYMEN. | [By Joe B. Simpson.] Part 11. The Chicago man knew that concentration of the pork business at a port was the chief means of increasing profits and consequently better pay for cosh invested. Half-a-dozen firms atone time in competition recognised the utility of combination. There, is no need to show what that concentration and : amalgamation has done for them, and, I repeat, if central butter works are instituted and the dairy industry reorganised thereby, the pig industry as a connection to the main issue would be put on a basis that would benefit everybody. As things are, we are at the mercy of a system of cut-throat—one body of, say, GO shareholders against another body, the only one to benefit being the outside ehnp, who gets the best pay for doing—what? Finding a customer—who is already known to you—which yoii can do yourselves. You never have relied on yourselves because you like to have 11 buffer to bear any probable loss, ami that buffer gets at you all the time. Surely you know how? If you consign, the prices of your produce fluctuate so that you -wish you had sold outright. Other interests are at work. If you sell outright, prices reach a figure that makes you wish you had consigned. You send a man to look ttfter yo,ur "interests." D6e's it do any good? Nothing,' except add a little more to the cost, of production A tew years ago a writer in the Press, in agitating for improvement all round in dairy factories and their management, pointed out the amount of Cash lost to the farmer through a second-grade article being produced. It came to double figures, if I remember rightly. Now, working as one, all methods of treating the cream as one, the manipulating of that cream under the one roof, under the one supervisor, should eliminate the possibility of anything else but a ! ONE-GRADED ARTICLE,

and that the highest. We cannot get that without centralisation, and I hold that it is as easy for dairy factories to co-operate to that end as it was for individual farmers to co-operate in a factory, and would be a fitting finale to the efforts of the State in fostering the industry. A correspondent asks for facts and ' figures. Figures I leave to those bet- ; ter ahle to furnish them than I am; as ' for facts, look to outside countries' ef- ' forts at organisation. If we try we can beat the whole of them. Has it ever \ struck you, Mr. Dairy Farmer, what you ' are losing through not having a meatfreezing works of your own? But that's | another matter! I have been told we ; must have the middleman. All right; ! but if anybody you employed asked for ■ more than his rights, or attempted to ' dictate to you, you'd "fire" him pretty quickly and do without him. And that's the position now. They will "bull" and they will "bear" to make a "pot," and we suffer, the consumer suffers, and the country suffers, so I say, alter it; it's in your hands. Taranaki is peculiarly situated for the carrying out of a concentrated scheme of all industries relative to the work of the farmer, but if he does not move it cannot be done. If the farmer is content for his family and himself to toil all hours, all weathers, suffer losses of all description, and pay through the nose for everything, ' WHERE IS THE END OF DRUDGERY! Who is to blame but himself? After 20 odd years' work, the system needs the cobwebs taken' off it, and when that is done it will be found to be what it is not —perfect. The disadvantages of having so many brands of butter, from the Dominion on the English market and. with difficult Maori names, have time and again been pointed out as a means whereby loss is occasioned the country and the individual, and I ask: How is that going to be remedied unless the manufacture is centralised? Many Danish factories amalgamate under one brand and send an agent over to push the sale of that brand. We are closer to our market and have better carrying Utilities than we had, say, 15 years ago, and still advancing there. We have got pretty close to the Danes' figure as it is, and I see no reason why we should not equal them if we pulled ourselves together. Why not? I think it was in August last that London butter merchants at a meeting decided to ask the Danish Butter Control. Board (mark that, Taranaki!) to sell the butter at a fixed price, as they objected to the price being arranged by the Board as the market rose and fell. Seemingly, the Danes understood some of the inner workings, and having got a footing on I a firm basis, are strong enough to demand and get their share. But we—we take what is allowed us and say, "Thanks, do \better for us next time, old chap!" And who is there to see the smile? Where ' is our control board? Can we get such a safeguard under the present disjointed, tug-this-way-that-way system? The dairy industry is one of the principal arteries providing the State's existence, and is growing more and more important each year. So much so that anything that will tend to develop and extend such industry must receive State assistance or support, the whole community benefits and the logical outcome of the expenditure by the State in the past, at the present, and no doubt in the future, in all things for the benefit of the man on the land, is the production of one uniform article, but we (it rests with us) have to do our "'bit'' to the end required. "Will we get it at the lowest cost going as we arc? When I hunt out the doings of the individual States of America in the forming of State farms to experiment for the benefit of the farming class in everything relative to production; when I find this has been going on for years; when one reads of the system of the Dane of "one for all, etc."; when I gather news of the combination of Irish farmers; of cooperation and amalgamation of farmers everywhere for their own protection. 1 cannot help but say that the farmers of New Zealand (not only of Taranaki tins time) contain manv ungrateful spirits in not recognising how our State has put tliem into their present position 1 which they on their own would never 1 have attained without enormous cost. ; As it is they are slow to realise that the end of all is \ CENTRALISATION. ; Other countries find they lose by not . iroing abend with the changes of modern ■ business and have made a start by solid 1 combination as an effort to hold their , own. Arc we going to sit still in con--1 le.itment with what obtains at present? 1 A few years ago we had a visit from - some members of the Wholesale Co-opor- -• \ ative Society of England (a .society start- - ed by workingmen on contributions of 3d . pi't- week!, and the Press gave particu- \ lars of that society regarding its turnover, etc. I remember the amount went \ into double-figure millions per year, and from what 1 can gather it has grown enormously. It embraces all trades, all dairy produce, even iron and coal mines. There is no doubt it is all a. question 1- of management, and if a concern like 1, that, dealing with everything, can be a managed successfully, what is the matter ?, with us that we cannot take a leaf from this, book? Have the "other interests"

got. too tight a grip so that we are paralysed both in thought and action that we should saw "Things can't be better than what they are," and "It's good enough as it is!" The country residents are invited to join "talking associations," the main object being to cornLine lor political purposes. That takes •?-»sb 'mm the pocket, and does no good to anyune. but the individual appointed to hold "that particular axe on the stone." The combination for central works means putting cash into pockets and would cause the units of such to act as one where their interests are affected, whether inside or outside the Dominion. How is it now? You can howl, but there's no weight behind it. If you make up your minds to bite when the biting comes there are so many deflections that the one try is enough and no good results ensue. There is no cohesion, no sympathy and its so-called co-operation. If the directors of the "tin-pot" factory can by "barrack" with the representative of the butter merchant get a better price than their neighbor, the "Salt Tub" brand, there's great jollification on the one side and heartache on the other. You know that's correct, and do you think that is the right spirit to have in such an industry as ours ? And don't forget that the chap who stands in the middle has the laugh the profits! There is no mistake, the dairy farmers of Taranaki are SIMPLY MARIONETTES because of their apathy. Really, I begin to think the majority does not care one jot or take the least interest in their, business other than draw the cheque; but they are in for a sad awakening within a few years if they don't soon wake iip to the necessity of solid combination. I have seen the time when one surf-boat could take the monthly output of Taranaki's butter; I have seen it stacked on the wharf in hundreds of boxes under tarpaulin because of steamers going by on account of rough weather; I see now the magnitude of the industry, and who is there to deny the possibility of its extending to something enormous even in a short while? But to encourage it to move rapidly it must be centralised. .It has to come, and we can benefit by doing it at once. The next generation will reap fuller benefit, and I further hold it is our duty to our families and to our country td do it.