FARMERS BEWARE.
(To the Editor.) Sir,—T notice, in your paper tlmi WiHio .1. Freeth is fond of airing- his opinions and socking .1 cheap advertisement for himself. To .this I have'no objection, .hut I do object to his making statements and attributing same to me, and if he caimoli understand' plain English I will endeavor to find an interpreter for him at future meetings. Willie J. ,F. says: "Mr. Powdrell said he was going to Wellington to get more or the tax on to tip tatter people, and he was asked by the meeting not to d 6 so." I. never mado any such statement, so could not have been asked by the meeting not to do so (sec press reports); and, further, at that time no committee had'; been appointed to go to Wellington. At the meeting I said I was agaiwt the tax; secondly, if there was & tax; butter should not alone bear the tax; but I Aid say, "At present cheese has to eontribute to imiko up any deficiency on local butter gold, while there is flo provision made by Parliament for butter to help cheese, should butter realise more for the season than cheese. Therelore the tax could not be equitable." I told the meeting that if elected I would do everything possible to show the iniquity of the tax, even' though wo had to mention cheese v. butter. After this tiie committee was elected, with a free hand, and I was among the number chosen, in spite of Mr. Frcetb being present. Willie J. Freeth says that I was one of the Win speakers and put the sanie issue 'before the Minister that I had been asked not to. Perhaps it wonld interest him to know that before we met the Minister, delegates from the North Island had a meeting and a vote was taken on this same matter, Willie J. Freeth and Co. <bteing beaten almost unanimously, and the spokesmen were to have a free hand. I understand Willie J. Freeth belongs to a factory of seven suppliers, hence his 'being, a. director and so qualified to air his opinion on all matters, including the N.D A. and other people's business in particular. 'Ho suggests -putting highly paid officials at the -head of the N.D.A. This association hasi in spito of men like Willie J. Frcetb, made excellent progress, and made large profits, largely by the help of its directors and managers. My friend presumes to manage the affairs of the N.D.A., but fee has admitted that he could not nindage lug own, for in a ftfrlfier letter he said that in his district '•the 20th of the month comes round and no cheques," and this wizard of finance suggested: "All factories should guaran-1 tee an account to help such cases"—a kind of help thyself policy. Not too had for Willie, seeing some- *ictories down our way have been paying Is 3d since December! His next statement is a financial wou-der,-for he says: "Cheese purchased by agents in.'New Zealand worked out at 014(1. The agents wanted to stick to the contracts and sell to the Government at !)'/.d, keeping the y 4 d for writing the business, instead of paying 'Hi per cent, to agents as at present." He then says: '•'lf this is correct, why on earth was it not accepted? I (Willie Freeth) consider it the finest proposition that could possibly have been made/' and had he 'been ', connected with a soiling factory ho would have asked pointed questions. Fancy such an authority af Willie sugi jesting that cheese factories should pay '/id per lb on all cheese sold, or £2 Os Sd per ton, in preference to their present arrangement of VA per cent., or £1 2s 2d per ton! W..T.F. then tells us that '£Bo,ooo worth of butter and cheese had been, shipped uninsured from New Plymouth by the Corinna, Another blunder, I presume, or he would nob have «>m- | plained. [f. Then my friend wanders off in an['tocher direction and asks what the pigs t are to live on if the casein and sugar of !niilk is extracted, but as these two products are' estimated to return fid or 7d per lb butter-fat to the farmer, why not he logical, Mr. Frecth, and suggest leaving the cream in too for poor piggy; In fact, 1 have heard that .pigs thrive well on new milk. Then Mr. I'rceth sighed for Bimoc-k & Co.; then he talked some piffle about the (Amalgamated Bacon Co. of Farmers taking over a liability of £120.000, and the'new company paying I out Id to l ;1 /id less than formerly and. 4»/.<l less than the South Island. As I am a director of the Amalgamated Co., might I point out to my knowing friend that we purchased the bacon companies in the amalgamated concern at hook value, a valuation showing the properties etc., at over .£13.000 over book values; so where is the > farmers' liability, Mr. Freeth? Hl3, statement that we are paying Id to V'/cd less for their pork is not true concerning our company,' and the poor fellow is evidently being taken down toy someone, because the amalgamated company has during the season made a progress payment to shareholders of Sd per lb, and' to' fur-seeing men who are shareholders a. good dividend is assured. Mr. Freeth's statement, re pigs 'bringing 4%d more in the South than in the North Island is too ridiculous to. answer, as we are large buyers in the South Island ourselves. ':■■*'
Mr. 'Freeth says that "those nvfto represented Taranaki woefully neglected their duty to those who Had sold, and who had sent them down," This individual was told at the meeting that no 1 one was sent from Taranaki to meet agents, 'but a few Taranaki men were in Wellington on other business when they, met many chairmen of the South Island cheese factories who had sold, anil who were meeting the agonts ; and then Mr. MaeDonald, re elieese sold by previous arrangement. We joined in and had our say at the agents' meeting, objecting to the" North Island paying any commission on good contracts to he broken and n 9'/od contract) substituted, much to the annoyance of the- agents. But the South Island representatives, who had sold at low prices, were eager to pay a commission and cancel the contracts (which
was quite right under many of their [ agreements), and'agreed to inculi Mr. Mae'Donald and submii their terms. The | Tanmki men, by a vote which was not •unanimous, decided .■ not to go to the, Minister, as we 'had no authority Avhatever from selling factories to offer any i commission to annul good contracts and ,i accept lower prices. .All we could have done was to have pushed into tlie meet- , ing arranged by the Minister and South' •, Island members, uninvited, and opposed their suggestion, having no power to > offer any alternative.
No doubt Willie J. Frecth would have pushed iiis nose into other people's affairs in' this case also, and aired his opinions on ail matters, judging by his letter. However, I would advise him to leave public, affaira alone and stick to his business, milking the cow, where his
knowledge will 'be of some service to his countrv.—l am, etc,, , * , W. P. FOWDRELL. Han-era, May 7, 1917.
Permanent link to this item
Hononga pūmau ki tēnei tūemi
https://paperspast.natlib.govt.nz/newspapers/TDN19170509.2.36.2
Bibliographic details
Ngā taipitopito pukapuka
Taranaki Daily News, 9 May 1917, Page 7
Word count
Tapeke kupu
1,220FARMERS BEWARE. Taranaki Daily News, 9 May 1917, Page 7
Using this item
Te whakamahi i tēnei tūemi
Stuff Ltd is the copyright owner for the Taranaki Daily News. You can reproduce in-copyright material from this newspaper for non-commercial use under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International licence (CC BY-NC-SA 4.0). This newspaper is not available for commercial use without the consent of Stuff Ltd. For advice on reproduction of out-of-copyright material from this newspaper, please refer to the Copyright guide.