I.—6a,

18

school-teacher but a thorough expert in the business. Ido not want a man to say to them, " Your dairy is not fit for making butter," but rather one who will make the best butter with the appliances available. 198. Would you not select dairy experts from Denmark or Normandy where thorough dairyfarming is carried on ?—lt is a question whether that would not be going one point too far.. . 199. I understand you want to put butter in the London market to compete with the butter that is going there from other places ?—Yes, we do ; but if you give too great a wrench farmers are apt to pooh-pooh it. You may do these things gradually, but not force a man to do them at once., 200. Do you think there would be any improvement if you had a first-class man ?—Yes; I should call a man a first-class man who can make good butter and teach the making of good butter. 201. Would it not be better to have a first-class Danish expert?— The process of teaching should be gradual. 202. Do you think the settlers would be prepared to pay fees for instruction if a man were sent round to the districts?—l never thought of that. It is a trouble to get money out of them ; there is no doubt about that. I think the principle of making the farmers pay would be a wrong one. Ido not think they would pay. 203. Have you seen the butter-boxes made by Begg, of Dunedin ?—No. 204. Do you not think that the best class of instruction is as necessary to the dairy-factory as to the farmer ?—The companies will remedy that in the long run. If they are sending away inferior butter their pockets will soon remedy that. Many of the dairies in New Zealand cannot improve ; they are as high as they can go. 205. The Chairman.] If night-trains were established by the Eailway Department, I suppose the settlers would make use of them ?—Yes. 206. There would be no difficulty in arranging parcels of 50 tons ?—No, there would be no difficulty. There is not much butter goes direct from the settlers. Nearly 7 the whole of it is bought by the storekeepers in the different districts. Their wish is to have a night-train or a special train. 207. These special facilities being found by the department, shipments by sea- would cease?— Yes, entirely, I believe. I would never send another package by sea. Another season like the last would ruin the dairying trade. The losses this time have not, fortunately, perhaps, fallen on the farmer at all; it is the buyer who has lost the money. The farmers have not dropped down to the magnitude of the danger they are in now. The butter for which the farmers were paid £3 and £3 10s. was sold in the London market for £2 and £2 10s., and even lower in some cases. 208. I suppose, from your knowledge of the Taranaki District, you would like the Committee to understand that the dairy industry is capable of indefinite extension there?— Yes. 209. That the land is particularly capable for dairy industry ?—Yes. 210. That the climate and character of soil are favourable ?—Yes. 211. So that, if facilities are found "for storage, for freight, and carriage by the Eailway Department, the industry is capable of indefinite extension ?—Yes. It has been extending very much lately, and it will go on further and further. The sales this year have been very heavy indeed. In 1887 —quoting from the annual report of the Taranaki Chamber of Commerce—s22 tons of butter were exported from the breakwater alone. In 1888, 1,306 tons were exported ; and in 1889, 1,545 tons. 212. The butter for export from Taranaki to London is manufactured there?— Yes; it is manufactured within the spring and summer months—within about five months. We do not go beyond January for London shipments. 213. Mr. Marchant.] Supposing the arrangements for direct shipment of meat from Waitara or New Plymouth to London by the Tyser line are perfected, your remarks with regard to railing butter from New Plymouth to Wellington will require modification ?—Yes, except that the Tyser line will be slow steamers, and would not take more than one or two shipments in the year on the present plan. ,214. The Chairman.] You think it would be more to your interest to send the butter by the Direct line ?—Y'es. On the whole, I think the bulk of the butter will go for transhipment at Wellington for some years.

Fbiday, 15th August, 1890. Captain Heney Eose, Chairman of Wellington Harbour Board, and Manager in Wellington of the New Zealand Shipping and Steamship Company, examined. 215. The Chairman.] The Committee desires information from you with respect to the shipment of butter, the means adopted for providing cool-chambers, and the general charges on butter in transit from here to England ?—I have myself shipped butter to England; that is many years ago. There was a Committee appointed by the House some twenty years ago to inquire into this subject. Sir John Hall, I think, was Chairman of that Committee. I was then in Lyttelton. I remember Sir John Hall wrote to me, and asked me if I could give any information. I was then shipping butter to England. It was in small quantities—about twenty, thirty, or fifty firkins at a time. It was bought from the farmers. As a speculation it was a failure. There was no cool-chamber known at that time for the purpose. It was placed in the coolest part of the boat, towards either end., The result of three trials that I made was that the butter was rancid when itgot to England. I first took it Home in ordinary kegs —good, well-flavoured butter. I next tried oak firkins brought out from England, and filled with salt; then we tried jars. This also failed. I had it analysed : the butter was perfectly pure, but I learned afterwards that it was buttermilk which was left in the. butter that caused all the mischief. Now, however, the butterexport trade is on a totally different footing. The means adopted in the steamers for carrying butter is sometimes the cool-chamber and sometimes freezing. Some shippers prefer that it should be