THE DAIRY POOL.

Taranaki Daily News, 27 May 1922, Page 8

THE DAIRY POOL.

A’’ (To the Editor.) Sir—with your permission I shall, through the medium of your columns, enter an emphatic (though I am afrad vain) protest against the method m which the butter and cheese pool has oeen inaugurated. I cannot conceive more unbusiness-like than the high-handed manner in which this matter has been carried through. This high-handed method of dealing with large questions seems to be a war legacy. Certainly a few years ago the meat and butter pools woni d never have been passed with as little scrutiny by those concerned. When factorv suppliers elected directors at the last annual meetings, I don’t tbmk they were given power to settle off-handed a question of such magnitude, and one that is closely affecting the farmers’ vital interests. Apparently, also, these directors failed to see that the meeting at New Plymouth was impartially earned out. One of the most ardent supporters of the scheme was elected chairman, and, according to reports, he lost no time m advancing his cause, going so far as to declare the project carried on a show of hands. I am not uttering one word for or against the pool, but surely I have some reason for hoping the rank and file of the dairy farmers will awake from their slumbers and insist upon their rights. If they permit- a small coterie of men to simply domineer them into such a colossal undertaking requiring the most careful and gravest consideration by all concerned, and one fraught with immense possibilities for good and evil to themselves, then I believe the dairy farmers may live to regret it. I am sure no other class of men in New Zealand would countenance so serious a step without the fullest participation in its promulgation. I believe if dairy farmers refuse to take measures to keep these few autocrats in bounds, that, flushed with victory, these gentlemen will delegate to themselves fresh powers, and the ordinary working farmer may find himself a mere insignificant cog in a huge machine, the working of which he will have nothing to do with. Factory directors rqay become extinct and our affairs directed by bank managers and commercial men with business ability to look' after us, and a few retired farmers like Mr. Goodfellow. I wish, before concluding, sir, at the cost of repetition, to again assert that a matter of such importance to the dairy industry should not be put into motion without at first receiving the indispensable sanction of the majority of those engaged therein.—l am, w. A. THOMAS. Oakura.