PRODUCER OR MIDDLEMAN?
The Director of the Research Institute himself lays more emphasis than even Sir Horace Plunkett's Institute on the utter dependence of the farmer, especially the dairy farmer, on the middleman. He italicizes this passage. "In spite of our attempts to organize collective bargaining, farmers are always dealing, in effect, as individuals on a market controlled by close corporations. These corporations . . . are in a position to dictate prices." He shows how, since the War, the well- organized retailers have acquired control -of the milk for manufacture as well as of the liquid milk for sale. They decide both what the consumer must pay and the farmer receive. It might almost be said that their profits are likely to vary inversely with the profits of the farmer, for over-production is their ideal. It is no wonder that Mr. Orwin comes to the conclusion, which again he italicizes, that " In its marketing aspects dairying may be said to be just as backward as it is advanced in other ways." The N.F.U., in short, is a lamea- table alternative to co-operative organization.
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