DAIRY PRODUCE

Ashburton Guardian, Volume 56, Issue 75, 10 January 1936, Page 7

DAIRY PRODUCE

LOCAL CONTROL DEFENDED.

VISIT MAY BE POSTPONED. (Per Press Association). WELLINGTON, Jan. 9. That the Government has requested the Dairy Board to postpone the bringing into force of the proposed regulations for the control of the local market was intimated by the Minister of Agriculture (the Hon. W. Lee Martin) to-day. Mr Lee Martin explained thqt this action had been found desirable because the Government was at piesent completing consideration of its policy of guaranteed prices, and it was thought undesirable to put into force regulations which might subsequently be found to conflict with that policy, or to hamper its working. Somewhat similar circumstances also obtained as to export marketing, added the Minister, and the Government had further requested that the visit to England of the Board’s deputychairman, Mr C. P. Agar, to inaugurate the export marketing control scheme recently propounded by the Board, should be postponed in order that Mr Agar should be available in New Zealand for consultation with the Government in the completion ol its plans.

BOARD CHAIRMAN’S STATEMENT.

LOCAL SCHEME COMPLETED.

AUCKLAND, Jan. 9,

Interviewed by telephone at Stratford to-night, the chairman of the Dairy Board (Mr A. J. Murdoch), who is holding a series of conferences with the Taranaki producers regarding the new export marketing scheme, said that the Government’s two requests for postponement of action on the local and export schemes had not yet been communicated to him officially. As to the local marketing scheme, 'Mr Murdoch said that draft regulations had been prepared -by the Board and submitted to the Executive Commission of Agriculture, which had approved them and had presumably placed them before the Minister, who "was chairman of the commission. The scheme could be put into operation as soon as the necessary regulations were promulgated, either by order-in-council or by parliamentary action, by not otherwise. So far the Government had not expressed its opinion on the draft that had been submitted.

The export marketing scheme, which it had been proposed to make operative on August 1 next, had been discussed when the Board made a courtesy call upon the Cabinet about the middle of December, and opportunity had been taken to explain the lines upon which the Board proposed to work. The scheme, like the other, could not function except under the authority of regulations yet to be issued.

Mr Murdoch added that the Dairy Board would meet at Wellington on Tuesday, and the Minister’s communication would then be dealt with.