DAIRY INDUSTRY

Wairarapa Times-Age, 10 June 1938, Page 3

DAIRY INDUSTRY

“A good deal has been and could be said about the industry’s viewpoint of the operation of the guaranteed price,” the report observes, “but we think that as delegates to the conference will no doubt be voicing their opinions freely on this issue, there is little need to deal with it at length here. “Rising costs have offset some of the advantages, and with the latest announcement of the intention of the Minister of Marketing to pay this year’s surplus to the industry, it is clear that the Government’s original idea with regard to equalised pay-outs season by season through the guaranteed'price has'gone by the board. The industry’s complaints lie principally in two directions —increasing ' regimentation and Government control and the continual rise in costs.”

•Dealing with cheese manufacturing cists, the report says a remit was passed at last conference that it Was “inequitable that the price fixed for cheese should be based on an average cost of production of all factories. Small factories predominate in number, and in order to encourage these to cdntlnue, the Government be asked to base the price on the costs of production of factories manufacturing 150 or 200 tons annually.” Nothing had come of the promise of the Minister of Agriculture that this and other cheese problems should be discussed at a meeting of the cheese section of the industry.

'Referring to the first Dominion award for dairy factory employees, the report says “it provides for a higher rate' of wages, "and while this will "add a little " more to the rising "costs of manufacture, it cannot justly be said that in " comparison with other industrial awards, the scale is unduly high. “What is hitting the industry hard is the shortening of working hours, which, particularly in cheese factories, is proving extremely irksome, "and must inevitably react" in an unfavourable ' manner from the standpoint of quality. Certainly it has added substantially to the load of responsibility carried ’"by many managers, who are finding It difficult to maintain, their accustomed standard of quality, under the "altered conditions. 'lndeed, it might-fairly be asked whether ‘the lower grading points which have been a ’ featfife -of the latter portion :; of 'the season, have any relationship *to this factor.”

AIR C. H. WESTON OUTLINES POLICY - SUBDIVISION OF RURAL LANDS INDUSTRIES AND EMPLOYMENT (By Telegraph —Press Association.) LEVIN, June 9. Some of the things the National Party proposes to do if returned to power at the elections, including the institution of a progressive policy of subdivision of country land, the giving to everyone in the community the opportunity of owing his own house, the repealing of the legislation commandeering primary produce of farmers and the treatment of every section of the community alike, were outlined by the president of the New Zealand National Party, Mr C. H. Weston, K.C., in an address here tonight. “Whatever the National Government does, it will not I'educe wages. I can tell you we are not going to do that,” said Mr Weston. Mr Weston was accorded an attentive hearing by a full hall, there being a few interjections. Dr L. J. Hunter, president of the Levin branch of the party, presided and Mr G. A. Monk, the party’s candidate for the Otaki electorate, also addressed the meeting.

“One plank of the National Party’s platform is the subdivision of country lands,” Mr Weston said. “For some time we have called a halt to subdivision in New Zealand. The National Party thinks there is still a great deal of country that can be subdivided to provide farms for the sons of farmers and farm labourers. We all agree that the small farmer, who owns his own property, is one of the best kind of men we can have in New Zealand. We think that the cost of roading and subdividing should be paid for by the Government of the day. After all, roading and bridging is the afiair of the Government. It is not right that these costs should be put on to the shoulders of the man taking up the land.