Historic: Australian honey...

[NickWallingford]

Not the attempts in recent years, but back in the 1930s...

I'm still researching to write an article about the 1937/38 period, when the Honey Control Board exceeded its authority and was caught (by Billy Bray, primarily!) dealing in foreign honey sales. I've collected the various items documenting that period into a folder to make it possible to browse chronologically:

Index of /NZBDA/1937_Australian_honey_import

But I wanted to make this posting to record what I count as one of the finest bits of prose I've read while setting up this beekeeping archive. The line comes from a letter Billy Bray wrote to the major newspapers, lifting the lid on the shambles of the Australian honey import.

"We want to know who finds the money for these deals and also what the Government is doing to prevent such twinny-dingling with the goodwill of our markets."

No one likes a twinny-dingler. Go, Billy, go!

 

[Alastair]

Wow, dirty deeds go way back I thought we were better than that then 😮

 

[NickWallingford]

There have been flim-flam operators, for sure, over time. But what really amazes me is the degree of quite blatant conflicts of interest, with seemingly no interest in the topic at all, a sign of those times, I guess.

Colin Cooper was a Director of the Honey Producers Assn (HPA). He was also a Managing Director for Jack Butland's food processing company. Jack Butland who later became the Govt's representative on the Honey Control Board, when the HPA was put into voluntary liquidation. Jack Butland who negotiated a deal so he became the sole agent for Morton's, the London agent for the HPA, while Cooper was still his Managing Director. So then Cooper became the liquidator for the HPA for about 3 years, variously negotiating outcomes with Butland's Board!

Sometimes they did good, sometimes they just did well.

 

[Alastair]

Wow I didn't know all that.

I'm thinking that back then it was sometimes thought that regardless of conflicts of interest, a decent person would do the right thing.

Now we know that is often not the case.