MEAT EXPORT

Evening Post, Volume CXXVI, Issue 137, 7 December 1938, Page 9

MEAT EXPORT

PROPOSED EMPIRE

COUNCIL

WARNING TO FARMERS

(By Telegraph—Press Association.)

CHRISTCHURCH, December 6. A strong "warning that participation in any such body as ai* Empire Meat Council, as suggested at the British Empire Producers' Conference, held vi Sydney this year, would be extremely dangerous, wat given by Mr. J. D. jOrmond, a member ■! the Meat Producers' Board, when addressing farm ers at the Canterbury lamb export competition in Belfast today. Mr. Ormond said the-* an obvious result would be that other Dominions* producing meat woulu insist on taking some of New Zealand's large share ot tht British market. "The question now is how much of our meat will Great Britain take,' said Mr. Ormond. "It was suggested earlier this year that an Empire Meat Council should be formed, but if that, happens it will be very serious for New Zealand, with its unique position on the London Other Dominions will immediately want some of our trade, and it will De a very serious thing if New "Zealand is forced into any such council." Mr. Ormond said thai though Jhere were very manj problems for the Meat Board to face, the position was not as gloomy as »ome people imagined. The dark future that many fell was ahead of meat producers would not necessarily eventuate. The Minister of Finance had reached a trade agreement with Canada which gave hopes for an expanded meat trade with that country, and the recentlyarranged Anglo-American trade treaty also gave hopes that there would be an expanding market foi Empire meat in the United States of America. A further influence was the development of the chilled beef trade, which had induced many North Island farmers to cease growing lamb in favour of beef, thus relieving the market for districts more suitable to mutton and lamb production. The recent hold-up of meat cargoes on the Auckland waterfront was described by Mr. Ormond as serious, because it had held the first of the new season's supplies of New Zealand meat off the London market for a "week.

"If we are to continue to have troubles of that sort," he said, "there is only one way out of it. We will have to establish cool stores on the wharves and develop some form of mechanical loading."