PRODUCE DISPOSAL

Wairarapa Times-Age, 19 May 1939, Page 6

PRODUCE DISPOSAL

MR SAVAGE’S STATEMENT ABOUT EXPLOITERS CHALLENGED BY ASSOCIATED CHAMBERS. ELABORATION REFUSED BY PREMIER. (By Telegraph—Press Association.) ♦ WELLINGTON, This Day. The Associated Chambers of Commerce recently wrote to the Prime Minister as follows:—“Some concern has been caused by a report published in the Wellington press in the course of which you are stated as having said: “ ‘We realise that some farmers are not getting a fair deal, but it is not due to the wages they are paying. There are other things to be corrected. I know that a guaranteed price is going to destroy those who are exploiting the wool grower. It destroyed those who were exploiting the dairy farmer, and I am not going to apologise for that.’ , “An interpretation of your statement is that since the dairy produce of New Zealand is now marketed by the State in place of private enterprise, the exploiters who were destroyed were those units of private enterprise who formerly conducted the marketing referred tp. In the same way it would seem that your statement that the proposed guaranteed price for wool was going to destroy those who were exploiting the wool grower also refers to those business concerns which for many years past have served the producers of New Zealand and helped to build up the prosperity of our primary industries. My association would be grateful to have from you an elaboration of your statement, as quoted above, and an indication of whether your references to exploiters were to those business concerns mentioned herein.”

A reply has been received from Mr Savage: “I have to thank you for your letter of the 13th inst, in which you quote a statement made by me and which has been published in the Press. I certainly made the statement, but I do not intend to be put under cross-examination about it by the Associated Chambers of Commerce. In any case. I am far too busy to write the essay that would be required to furnish you with the information suggested in your letter. Perhaps I should state that I would not be so foolish as to say that all business concerns associated with dairy produce were exploiters.”