MARKETING OUR DAIRY PRODUCE.

Taranaki Daily News, 6 July 1920, Page 6

MARKETING OUR DAIRY PRODUCE.

AN AGENT'S OBSERVATIONS. Writes Mr. S. Turner, the well-known produce buyer, from Hawera under date 4th July:— . Sir,—The letter in your issue of July 2 mentions the names of W. D. Powdreli, M.P., and myself, and it is evident by the remarks of your correspondent that personal friendship in business is assumed. Apart from this point the writer of that letter, Mr. W. E. Freeth, is a levelheaded and far-seeing man, who says he would like to hear my private opinion of the newly elected member for Patea electorate after the meeting at Palmer- • ston North. 8 * My private opinion is briefly stated in one or two English sayings which, in my opinion, are more reliable than Japanese sayings: (l)Genius ! is the art of making effort; (2) A man who cannot make a blunder cannot make anything; (3) All friends and no favorites in business; (4) No sentiment in business. If Mr. Powdreli makes one • v.unjler in every ten efforts in new developments he is still the able man my . iter represented him to be. I believe that every word in my recommendation letter to W. D. Powdrell's electorate will be borne out in his genuine efforts during the next year or' two on the country and farmers' behalf, and I speak as a non-political, non-sectarian, non-prohibi-tion, impartialist, who is still studying these much debated problems. Your correspondent touched me very much when hU letter was read to me by one who knows how I have fought to establish a sound principle of business for the dairy factories in the marketing of their butter and cheese. There may be one or two brokers buying outputs from factories whom the farmers may do well to eliminate, but my firm and myself have certainly justified the title of "the faithful cheese and butter factories servants." Anyway, I remind you of Paddy's way of looking at this servant problems "If you don't know when you have a good servant we know when we have got good employers and we are going to stick." Maybe when some of the dry supplying, land-speculating element have been swept away, the real farmer will take hold, and bu°iness will become more reliable, and it will be only one scheme out of every ten offered to the farmer that he will adopt. It is well known that the most serious competitor in any class of business is he or they who have made their fortune and are independent, but who are in business for the sport of it. They can afford to take risks, and the farmer who has made, say £4O to £SO an acre by selling land, and may be sold out nearly all his milk supplying interests, can afford to take still more risks at the farmers' expense. The dairy farmers need to look at this matter very closely and think for themselves when any revolutionary system of marketing is suggested which is older than most of the men on the land in Nefi Zealand to-day. Old and well tried systems of business are invaluable to any industry, 9ame as the old and well tried firm carrying out this system in competition with twenty other iirms. Now, about the supposed "unnecessary agent," which your correspondent rightly thinks has done a lot to help this industry together with the factory secretaries.. My opinion 13 that both men are not sufficiently appreciated. My personal connection with this dairy industry in New Zealand commenced 15 ! years ago, and taking every penny I have had out of it it is not as much as I made for two factories 011 these deals up to 1916. I can prove that as the direct result of my own strenuous efforts I practically made two factories £27<OOD between them on three deals in working very hard amongst the directors and offering such compelling consignment terms that it forced them to consign and they made* this money. Space does not allow me to give the details. Indirectly it has paid my firm and myself to get the factories on to a settled consignment system, and many directors of factories have admired Ngaere factory for consigning to one firm for 25 years in succession. The factories which have missed the bus three times in succession by not only changing their firms but by changing from gelling to consigning are 110 doubt dissatisfied, just the same as some South Island factories which have so often sold their output and lost heavily. Why should the factories all be grouped together And all the firms and agents b? grouped together/ There are several grades of effieie"ncy in the marketing of butter and cheese. After 20 years of practical marketing experience in the Old Country, the last five years of which I was coming to New Zealand and Australia, it makes me qualified to judge the quality of the arguments for an adjustment of this marketing scheme, and t have come to the conclusion that with only one exception the whole of the farmers and the whole of the representatives are not, talking from practical experience. The audacity and presumption with which this most scientific question of marketing in the Old Country is spoken of and argued about is amazing. Just fancy me trying to tell your old farmers with 20 to 30 years of practical experience how to farm and run their factories! I can just imagine some shrewdy asking me: "What practical experience have you had in farming and factory mangement ?" On my having to answer: "None; Iliave been amongst your farmers for 30 years and should know something." He would rightly say: "You don't know the practice by practical experience, and therefore you cannot claim to be an authority." Tins is what I say,to all the New Zealandei> who are arguing this question. No wonder the clever farmers can hold their own in argument on this subject. Have not some of them stood on London Bridge, and seen the half million peopie cross per day, and actually lived in the little village of London for three or fou' months at a time, and has not their pet firm' entertained and educated them so that they will tread the narrow path on their return to New Zealand? One of the wise men from the East arrived in London in factory interests, and came back and reported: "You would get 5s per lb for your butter." It is reported that he says the Tooley- Street houses had lost their customers during the war. I leave time to answer the first prediction and to con trad ict the second sta temen t. I refer your readers to the Imperial Government cheese controller for eorrnborntion of the statements he made to me before he returned to England the week before the Palmerston North Show. He ' said all the firms except one had just , about the same quantity of cheese dur- , ing the three years of the commandeer that they had in 1910 before the commandeer. In the case of one Scotch firm they went out canvassing for requisitions to their clients, and got about 2000 i tons more than they had in 101(1. because in that XMt th«y had no Canadian ;

cheese purchased) and they wanted to make up for it- The cheese controller stated that they were not supposed to go out for requisitions. Another' thing that the cheese controller told one or two of the New Zealand Government officials here was that they (the Imperial authorities) tried to eliminate the middlemen, but, after setting up commission:of enquiry, they considered that 2J per cent commission 011 all lots above six boxes and 5 .per cent under six boxes and 3£d per lb for retailing it according to the regulation quantities (sometimes in packages) was a very reasonable charge Before the war the retailers made an average of not more than I|, and in the case of the biggest firms, who are both importers and wholesaldmen, they sold to retailers at 21 per cent quite 60 to 70 per cent of their imports. The farmers in New Zealand have been misled if their ideas are different to the because nobody knows better than the man who controlled the cheese for the Imperial Government. My advice is let those factories who have been chopping and changing, both with regard to selling and consigning and changing firms, try this scheme, but let the factories who have had practical experience of the "Devil they do know" pay the 5 per cent if necessary, which this industry has always held is the value above what the "Devil you don't know" is worth. Insist upon seeing the factory :onsignment returns or result of sales of any new venture, so that you can know how much the experiment is costing those "dog and bone factories," who must remember that the camouflage caused by the closed door meetings made the proposed scheme magnify out of all proportions just as the shadow of the bone that the greedy dog saw in the water which magnified the size of the shadow.*