MEAT MARKETING

Wairarapa Times-Age, 25 May 1939, Page 8

MEAT MARKETING

CONDITIONS IN PROSPECT PRODUCERS URGED TO ACT. OPPOSITION TO GOVERNMENT CONTROL. “I would like to say a word or two in regard to the matter of quotas,” said Mr Lloyd Hammond in his presidential address at. the Inter-Provincial Conference of the Farmers’ Union today. “You are well aware of the action taken by the British Government to restrict the imports of meat from New Zealand. It is of vital importance to our welfare and we must take steps to devise an improved system of marketing. “The British Government,” he continued, “has invited the Dominions to take action because of the changing conditions throughout the world. We cannot afford to sit back and allow things to drift. At the Sydney conference of Empire producers last year it was recommended that the Dominions proceed to establish Commodity Councils in order to deal with primary produce. We have in operation the necessary machinery, namely the Meat Board, and as partial or- absolute control is likely in the near future, it is most desirable that we should get behind the Meat Board and ask it to undertake the systematic marketing of our produce. We definitely do not want Government control. Almost .100 percent of the sheep farmers are behind the Meat Board today and we should make it very plain that it is our desire that the control of our produce and its marketing should remain in our hands through the Meat Board. Unless we move towards this end and exercise some measure of control over quotas, we will end up in chaos. Sacrifices may become necessary but if such be the case, then let us all take a share.

“You have witnessed what has taken place under the system of Government control of oui- dairy produce—the failure of the guaranteed price scheme. We do not want to suffer the same experience, nor do we wish our produce taken from us in return for any old price fixed at the whim of one who is pledged to socialise our industry. New Zealand was built upon freedom — there was never any coercion and we do not wish it now.”