"CLOUDED JUDGMENT”

Sun (Auckland), Volume 1, Issue 17, 11 April 1927, Page 7

"CLOUDED JUDGMENT”

REPLY TO MR. GROUNDS PRIME MINISTER’S ANSWER STATEMENT ON CONTROL Press Association. WELLINGTON, Saturday. ‘*l deprecate bringing personalities into the discussion, and it seems that Mr. Gounds’ differences with Mr. Paterson have rather clouded his judgment, and caused him to adopt a course which certainly will not tend to encourage unity among our producers.” The Prime Minister, the Right Hon. J. G. Coates, expressed this opinion in replying to the statements made by Mr. W. Grounds, chairman of the Dairy Produce Control Board, in the last issue of the “Dairy Produce Exporter.” the official organ of the board. In an interview Mr. Coates made the following statement: “In the course of his remarks. Mr. Grounds says regarding the position as he found it on his arrival in England in September last ’For anything thus far recorded we should have no cause for complaint against Mr. Coates or his Government, but when subsequent experiences proved that Mr. Paterson, who is the Government representative on the agency, was engaged in this propaganda against the board. and openly proclaimed his opposition to its policy, manager, and general constitution, the position assumed a different complexion. These facts were represented to Mr. Coates in London, but, holding the same views, and having accepted Mr. Paterson’s guidance, without any proper investigation, it was readily foreseen that he could not jettison his guide.’ “The opinion expressed in the last sentence by Mr. Grounds in wholly inaccurate. So far from accepting Mr. Paterson’s guidance ‘without any proper investigation,’ I arrived in London in October with a mind openly sympathetic with the board, and imbued with an earnest desire that the board’s operations should be in every way successful. I was in no way guided by Mr. Paterson, nor by the interests opposed to the board's policy. If I had been captured by these interests my views might naturally be challenged, but what impressed me as to the seriousness of the position was that wherever 1 went among consumers, retail salesmen, distributors, multiple shops, or financial firms, the hostility to price-fixation was universal, and was by no means confined to those who might be regarded as disgruntled speculators.

“Thus, when I became aware from many eligible sources, apart from Mr. Paterson altogether, that the policy of price-fixation was giving rise to much antagonism and opposition, not only among trade circles, but also among the consuming public, and was also causing anxiety in financial circles, I had to consider whether I should take no action in the matter and leave the board to pursue its expressed policy. “My views were offered merely in an advisory spirit. I made it perfectly plain in London that the co-operative policy of the New Zealand producers in the marketing of their produce was definitely settled, and would continue. This statement was accepted, and the trade representatives in their turn expressed their desire to work in the interests of the dairy industry of the Dominion. I indicated, however, in my cablegram that the opposition to minimum price-fixing, not merely by traders, but consumers, was overwhelming. I could foresee the imminent danger of losing that friendly cooperation which is so essential for the successful marketing of our produce, and I emphasised this in my cablegram.”