OPPOSED VIEWS

Wairarapa Times-Age, 27 January 1939, Page 4

OPPOSED VIEWS

STATEMENTS AT IMPORTERS’ CONFERENCE MINISTER AND CHAIRMAN DIFFER. ATTACK ON THE GOVERNMENT DENIED. J (By Telegraph—Press Association.) WELLINGTON. This Day. Declaring that he had not been treater with courtesy, the Minister of Customs. Mr Nash, when he rose to reply to questions at the national import conference in Wellington yesterday, took strong exception to remarks just previously made by the chairman, Mr M. S. Myers, Dunedin. In the course of his statement Mr Myers said it seemed to him incredible that the Government could have fully realised the hardships that would result from its policy, nor the dislocation of business that had already been brought about. Mr Nash said he did not think it was fair that, when he attended the conference at his own desire to answer questions, he should, before he had done so, be subjected to an attack on the Government of which he was a member.

He was more than sorry, too, that the conference had decided not to allow two officers of the Customs Department to attend, as it had previously been understood that they would do so. He had also been unable to understand for the moment why he had been asked to consent to a dictaphone record being taken of the proceedings. Mr Myers denied that there had been an attack on the Government. If the Minister' had misunderstood him he was extremely sorry, he said.