GOVERNMENT’S PROPOSED MEAT POOL.

Taranaki Daily News, 7 January 1922, Page 7

GOVERNMENT’S PROPOSED MEAT POOL.

Two members of Parliament —both on the committee which drafted the meat pool scheme—were recently invited to enlighten fanners at Timaru on what the scheme seriously meant. What a damning comment on this scheme it was when these two> men had the nerve to appear at this meeting and say that, although they were on that committee, they themselves had come, not to give information, but to try and get some details of the scheme from men who cannot claim to be, in any shape or form, in the confidence of the Government! This extraordinary produce scheme is made to appear the more extraordinary as the Government have been wiring the conveners of all such meetings to keep out anybody who can give them any information about the scheme, when the very sponsors themselves of the scheme admit that they know' nothing about it. It is incredible that a proposal the most revolutionary in the history of the Dominion should be attempted to be rushed through except for some ulterior motives. In view of Government members’ total ignorance of the scheme, loose thiriking by members of Parliament necessarily follows. Hence, while Mr. Jones says the origin of this scheme was the cries of the producers for the Government to do something, on the other hand, Mr. Massey himself and another member of the committee have said the whole thing arose as, the result of a discussion of the issue of licenses to exporters during the coming year. Apparently, to get the Government out of some trouble for which they have only themselves to thank, the whole of this great industry in New Zealand is going to be made a football in order to save the prestige of someone up in Wellington.

If Government members at • Timaru were chary of showing their ignorance, Mr. Jones, at Ashburton, with some three weeks’ experience of this trade, was quite willing to rush in; and it is to be hoped that he has some sound reasons to support him, as he certainly gave none in favor of this scheme at that meeting. Export houses say they cannot operate; but Mr. Jones says they can. Mr. Jones was indiscreet, however, in that he gave his reasons, and they were that, because buyers had operated under a commandeer which specifically assured them the certainty of their own outlets in England—a commandeer which gave vast storage profits to the freezing works in New Zealand—a commandeer under which all risk of market was. eliminated—he now thinks they will buy when the keeping-up of their outlets at Home has been taken from them and given t,o some unknown committee, and when, instead of their risk ending in the works, at that point their meat is given to form part of a huge gamble—and a gamble in which their meat is going to be played with by this great unknown committee.

If intelligent men can stomach such an argument, could anything be more ridiculous than the suggestion that firms will keep up meat-buying organisations for the purpose of buying skins when any man in New Zealand can get all the wool he wants in any one day’s wool sale in this Dominion?

Having shown his "fitness” to grasp the effect of this scheme at his own door, in one minute he proposes to assert that equally well will the meat pool be able to control matters in England. This control consists mainly in New Zealand being able to force the consumer in England, according to Mr. Noswort'hy, into giving a farthing a pound more for this meat, although the Argentine is clamoring to thrust more and more meat on them at prices already lower than prices which the New Zealand producer cannot face to-day. This‘ scheme is backed by Government money, and the taxpayer, at the end of the year, will let the Government know that he is going to see that the man that finds the money is the man who is going to control the spending of it. One can imagine how the Argentine people will be rubbing their hands, as, having now only to face Government competition, while their own hands are free, and still further developing their own business, they will incidentally lay back to deal with the New Zealand meat when it comes along. Mr. Massey, however, is cautious, and al] his stump orators are careful to say to the producers: “This is not our scheme; this is to be your scheme; and all the risks (none of which we indicate) are to be on your hands.”

In the meantime, a farmer, if he wants to sell his lambs at a price which will bring him out of all his troubles for the year, is quite unable to accept that price, but is forced to put his meat into a pool, to be sold at some time and at some place by a board to whom he has handed over his own individuality. The only thing the board does not propose to take over is this man’s mortgages ! (Published by Arrangement.)