MEAT EXPORT BILE

Hokitika Guardian, 7 February 1922, Page 4

MEAT EXPORT BILE

,(Lytteljtou Tim.cs): Sensible people will like the meat pool no better n,bw that they are allowed to know a little more about it than they did jyheij ,the proposal wg.s mure phaotj.c. We suppose Parliament wii) pass jtjße Meat Export Rill, with all its jaaj.ts apd pefijs because Mr a majority that -wilj pass anything tjmjt he proposes, b v ut fpr tjie sijke op ,tjie farmers, fine) Mm Dpnijnip l ) of jybi.cli tljjgy are a very important class, the right )VbPld be jor the House ■pQ reject tb.e megs are. W,e attack it on two grfluigls. We t.liiji.k it’introduces dangerously jmja.oia.l Principles' and involves grave ris,b to ,o.ne of New Zealand’s main mdustries.' The facj that it means the • us,e of pubii.c money or public credit, or h.otjjj for' the purpose of a private bijsis.li,o,uld iii itself be sufficient tp damp the proposal in the minds of ji,o,nest people. The Bill goes beyond tills, however. It provides tnat a b'ojird to.be established may take-over tlie whole of the meat export trade. It may seize the property of every farmer producing meat for export, taking it out of their hands and marketing it, well or badly as the ease may he, in defiance of whatever objections may be fejt or expressed by the actual owner of tlje meat. The board may seize meat worth, say, a shilling a pound and sell it for sixpence, giving to the producer what is left out of the sixpence after tjie hoard’s salaries and expenses haw

been deducted—and the unfortunate farmer, the grower and proprietor ot the meat, the man whose capital and industry and whose livelihood are represented in the product, will have no redress. Looking at the matter from another angle, the board may seize meat worth sixpence a pound, advance uinepenoe against it, and with the connivance of lhe Government according to “law,” charge the loss up to the taxpayers <>!' New Zealand. The board, of course—which Mr Massey has yet to create by the way—is supposed to be able to make profits and not losses. It is to control' export and shipping and markets, even to reduce the cost of production ; but it will be an amateur body usurping experts in the trade and required to compete with experts in the British market or any other markets which the board may choose as experimenting grounds. The boaicl is raise money required to ‘‘carry on its operations” by levying on the seized meat, but whether a fund from which advances are to bo made is to be built up in this way or whether the taxpayesi (styled “the Government”) are to lie made to provide that fund, Mr Massey did not explain. He did say, however, that the Bill empowers the Government to financially guarantr.’ the ti am actions of the board if the banks should be “unable” to finance producers while their meat is waiting to be marketed. We take this to mean that the taxpayers may be involved in risks refused bv the banks.

Other features of the Bill are equally objectionable ami equally unsound, (no idea, for instance, that competitive buying of stock will not be interfered with when there is a board waiting to take charge of the meat as soon w

is ready for export is an idea that seems to directly clasli with oidinaij common-sense. Then we should like to know, and the farmer will need to know, how the board is to be chosen. The Government, of course, will appoint two members, and even if political influence is excluded there is no guarantee that the judgment of the Government will be sound; but how are the “producers’ representatives” to be selected? They cannot be representative unless they are properly airpointed by a majority of producers, but for this purpose there is no franchise and there is no roll. The chances are that political “pull” will operate and unsuitable men will sit on the boaid. Looking at the whole scheme, if it can be In? called a scheme, we dislike i! to completely that it is difficult foi us to to select orfte part as being more or less objectionable than another. Morally it is mad and economically it is full of peril to the meat export industry. The one redeeming feature is that Mr Massey’s speech seems to indicate that enthusiasm for the pool is waning. At all events, he seems to doubt whether some of the extraordinarv powers conferred, or proposed to be conferred, for the Bill is not yet law, will be used. It is quite possible that the pool will eventually fizzle out o r be reduced to a shadow of what was recently in the Government’s mind, iii that case, a few thousand pounds of the taxpayers’ money will probably •have been wasted —which is nothing new—and the meat trade will in timcj recover from the effects of this adventure into syndicalism.