COMPULSORY POOLING SCHEME FOR

Taranaki Daily News, 5 January 1922, Page 6

COMPULSORY POOLING SCHEME FOR

THE GOVERNMENT’S PROPOSAL. IS THERE AN ALTERNATIVE? The supporters of the scheme now admit that there are grave difficulties attendant upoiu a compulsory pool which compel all owners to put their fat stock into it, and accent a percentage (Mr. Jones, the chairman of the Government Committee, thinks 90 per cent, is' rather too’ high) of whatever value the Control Board puts upon it, and afterwards take the risk of any loss made by the Board in selling it. They ask if there is any alternative to the compulsory pool, and the answer is, emphatically — A VOLUNTARY POOL.

Compulsion is dead—there are sheepfarmers all over both Islands who hate it', and realise its dread consequences so well that they are signing petitions against it by hundreds. Fancy, that in New Zealand in 1922, . in peace time men should be praying the Government not to take away* their freedom to sell their stock in their own way. We are wetting just what was proiVftsied durFng the war —a race of bureaucrats who will endeavor to retain as long as possible, and increase, the powers over the people that the War Controls gave them. An increasing number of producers are saying that, if the Government wants to assist the small holders who cannot live under present conditions, it can help by introducing this voluntary i pool, and fixing minimum prices for all trades of stock. It can advance to the grower 100 per cent, of the minimum price, and take die risk of the selling itself, instead of holding it over the small man who has received the advance. The Government can seek the help and advice of the London meat trade in marketing this voluntarily pooled meat (the latest cables from London unanimously state that nobody with experience at that end has yet been consulted, which is extraordinary). There seems no whatever that the advisors of the Government have blundered into antagonising the whole of the Meat Trade, both here and in England. It is said that the “best brains” have been consulted; but against that there is the denial of all the successful meat traders that they knew anything about the scheme until they saw it in print. Durimr the late Imperial commandeer, when the British Government made a straight out purchase of all the meat, and bore al] the expenses on it afterwards (a very different thing from the present comnjilsory scheme, which forces a man to allow a Government pool to o-amble with his meat upon a dangerously glutted market, and tells him he will' have to stand all expenses and any losses) the leading men in the meat trade gave a generous, loyal and highly skilled"co-operation, which proved of untold value. It would be a disastrous thing for Nev,* Zealand If the proposed poo] came into existence and made a mess of the . trade, and the Dominion woke one morning to find she had lost the London market; that she was left with a State Socialistic dream, while other countries had the business. (Published by Arrangement.)