CORRESPONDENCE.

Taranaki Daily News, 30 May 1922, Page 7

CORRESPONDENCE.

DAIRY POOD—BEWARE!

(To the Editor.) Sir, —I would ask dairy farmers and the public generally to beware of this scatter-brained* scheme and to take good care that it is not carried into effect, whether with compulsion on the producers legislatively enforced or not. I desire to seriously warn the public that in it lies a great menace, not only to the welfare of the dairy farmers, but also to the welfare of the whole community and to the finance, of the country. And I would warn our legislators that to allow it, either with or ■without legislative computation, will be faking an immense risk of ruining hundreds and hundreds of dairy farmers including most of the returned soldier dairy farmers and of giving the dairying industry of this country a very serious set-back, to say nothing of the effect such will have on the country’s finance.

Here I will say that no one suggests that there is not room for improvement in connection with our dairying industry and the disposal of the produce, but the reforms are mostly needed at this end—in our country—in the factories—and above all in the cost of freight, which alone in the case of cheese to-day amounts to over one sixth of the net value.

Our dairy produce, which of late has formed a very great part of our total exports and the proceeds of which has meant our financial salvation during the recent slump in values of wool and meat, has been and is being handled by a large number of old established reputable firms in the United Kingdom whose businesses have been gradually built up and who have the advantages at their backs of life-long business experience in the produce trade, thoroughly established reputations and financial backing, well organised sources of information, an 1 each its clientele which assures the practically immediate disposal, at market values, of all our produce at once on arrival. Hitherto this has unfailingly taken place and consequently financing in connection with our shipments has been easy and without a hitch. The unfailing monthly cheque has been one of the chief sets off against the arduous life of the dairy farmer and has been the source of great soundness and stability of trade etc., in the towns of the dairying districts. It has to be remembered that there are a large number of these firms and that New Zealand produce forms only a. portion, in some cases a very -small portion, of their business, and consequently that no matter what quantity of our produce arrives, it being cut up among so many the congestion and delay that would inevitably occur from time to time if going through one or only a few channels, is non existent and the financial part is without a hitch.

In place of this tried and proved reliable system, under which competition is in unhampered and full operation, it -is proposed under the pool scheme to, at one fell swoop, place the whole of our Dominion’s dairy produce under the sole unfettered and unaided control of the Pool Board. A board which (with its organisation, whether it has within it commercial men or not, must, as an organisation, be absolutely raw and inexperienced, will have straight off, to take over the entire control of shipping, handling, sale and financing of our immense exports of dairy produce, which is now dealt with by scores of experienced firms. Con- - gestion, confusion, endless delays, and tons of thousands of pounds worth of produce lying in store being eaten up with charges and shrinkage, instead of. sales to meet drafts. This would be the inevitable result of one new, raw, and inexperienced organisation attempt-, ing to take over at one wild plunge the business now done by scores of experienced firms.

The whole thing is sheer reckless madness. Their statement that they are going to allow the produce to go through the present channels after being shipped, financed, and priced by them is valueless as it-lacks the slightest assurance, or even warrant to suppose, that the present merchants will take it at the price fixed, or for the matter of that at any price, under direction of the pool board. True they might ;take it one week the price suiting and perhaps the market bare and not take it the next or the next or the next for they, the merchants, won’t be under compulsion like the unfortunate producers. And so the whole thing per force must break down, for the pool board would have no possible means o-f disposal, and without assurance of disposal no financial institution would dream of accepting our drafts. If the scheme -was one to establish a house in London and, or, elsewhere to sell New Zealand dairy produce as New Zealand dairy produce, in competition with the existing houses, then the thing would rest on its merits, and though possibly costly at first, might grow into a valuable means of gradually improving the marketing of our produce. But the scheme as proposed is deemed to disaster and if attempted the dairying industry and everything dependent upon it will suffer such a frost that will spell wholesale disaster.

Very many dairy farmers are now going to the wall but there are hundreds and hundreds of others who with -hard work and pluck can and will pull through under present Conditions, but whose last chance would be gone if the scheme goes through, and these hundreds and hundreds would be -the hopelessly ruined, victims of the promoters of this mad scheme and of the legislators that countenanced it. —I am, etc., E. MAXWELL. Opunake, May 26, 1922.