MINISTER ADMITS N.Z. WANTS MORE FARM MACHINERY

Bay of Plenty Beacon, Volume 14, Issue 41, 21 September 1949, Page 4

MINISTER ADMITS N.Z. WANTS MORE FARM MACHINERY

Wellington, Tuesday. It could not be denied that New Zealand needed a certain number of agricultural machines which could be obtained only from America, and, as in 1949, the Government proposed to provide for these on as great a scale as possible for 1950, said the Minister of Customs (Mr Nash), replying to a letter from the general secretary of Federated Farmers (Mr A. P. O’Shea) in which Mr O’Shea had placed befor the Minister a resolution on American agricultural equipment passed at the recent conference of the federation. Mr O’Shea had doubtless been able to explam to the conference the extent to which the Govern-* ment, under circumstances which presented more than a little difficulty, had made the maximum possible provision for imports from America of types of tractors not procurable as yet, or not available in sufficient numbers from Britain, said Mr Nash. He assumed that the purport of the resolution passed at the conference was not that American tractors were necessary but that tractors having certain characteristics not possessed by existing British tractors were required. This had been recognised by the provision made for American machines, but to the extent that Britain could supply tractors capable of doing the work he thought that farmers would agree that New Zealand was bound, in her own interests, no less than in Great Britain’s, to give preference to the British article, said Mr Nash.