THE MEAT TRUST.

Taranaki Daily News, Volume LVI, Issue 291, 12 May 1914, Page 3

THE MEAT TRUST.

IS IT HERE? STATEMENT BY THE PRIME MINISTER. For some tme past the American Meat Trust has been seeking to acquire interests in freezing works, both in the North and South Islands, with a view to obtaining a permanent footing in the Dominion. When this matter was mentioned to the Prime Minister on Saturday he said that he wag convinced that | the Meat Trust was operating in New Zealand at the present moment. "If it jeonfined its operations to buying for shipment in the ordinary way," he continued, "there would be no possible objection to it. New Zealand producers are naturally ready to sell in the 'best market, whether the buyer is American or English. But I cannot help thinking of the record of the American Meat TJrust in its own country. We know that its aim has always been to so control the market as* to enable tit to squeeze the producer on the one side and raise the price to the coneumcr on the other, and if it were allowed to obtain control here no doubt that would be our experience. "The operations of the Tru3t in New Zealand will have to be very carefully watched, and so far as I am concerned I have no hesitation in saying that I am prepared to take very strong measures to put down any attempt on the part of the Trust to follow the methods which have been made familiar to us in American newspapers and extracts therefrom." —Dominion.