MEAT COMMISSION.

Auckland Star, Volume LVI, Issue 65, 18 March 1925, Page 12

MEAT COMMISSION.

MR. LYSNAR'S CHARGES. TRUSTS AND COMBINES. SALE OF MEAT WORKS. (By Telegraph.-Press Association.) WELLINGTON, Monday. The Royal Commission appointed to Inquire into the administration of the Government in connection with meat export control, and particularly charges made in the House of Representatives by Mr. Lysnar against the Minister of Agriculture and the Meat Export Control Board in connection with the sale of certain freezing works and other property of the Poverty J3ay Farmers' Meat Company to Vestey Brothers, commenced to-day. Outlining the case, Mr. Lysnar reiterated that the commission" was not set up at his request, but as the result of an official statement by the Government. The facts, when they came out, would show that it was not the Government but Mr. Xosworthy that was the responsible party. "If the Government chooses to push their fingers into the fire and get them burned they must take the consequences; I am not here to defend them," said Mr. Lysnar. Objections to Personnel. Dealing with his objections to the persornel of the commission, Mr. Lysnar said he considered it necessary that persons of judicial experience should have been appointed. The inquiry embraced questions of the utmost importance to the country and to the Empire. It dealt with general administration, and then with three particular instances of administration, (1) the working of existing laws relating to. slaughtering, meat export control and commercial trusts. (2) dealings surrounding the Poverty Bay Farmers' Meat Company's affairs, and the sale of those works to Vestey Brothers, acknowledged to be the largest combine in the world, and (3) the action of the chairman of the Meat Control Board in regard to noninclusion of the ship Admiral Codring-1 ton in the freight contracts and acquiescence in the sale of the company's premises to Vestey Brothers. The latter questions, Mr. Lysnar said, were minor as compared with the first, which was of Empire importance. He anticipated that the board and Mr. Nosworthy would attempt to magnify difficulties in particular cases, in order to veil the fact that they had failed to observe the greater principle. They would fasten on a possible prima facie justification of their particular acts in order to whitewash their general failure to. carry out the policy of the country. It was "significant that a Royal Commission was investigating the dangers of trusts in the meat industry in England, and he hoped a finding would be available before the New Zealand commission reported. Trusts and Combines. Proceeding, Mr. Lysnar said his main evidence would be directed to the first question, the fight against trusts and combines, whose plan was to work on the brutal cornering of markets by sheer weight of capital. The simple issue was, were trusts and combines to dominate, or the government of the people? It would probably be averred that the Minister and the board were justified in consenting to the sale of Vestey's, because Vestey's had another works in the. district and agreed to close them up. The producers of Poverty Bay should not be penalised because Vestey's had works already there. It might.fee stated that there had been some negotiations with Armour's representative for a sale. This, Mr. Lysnar said, he wholly denied, but he admitted that an effort was made to obtain .money from Armour's by way of mortgage, subject to the consent of the Government and board. It was surely the lesser of two evils to mortgage to Armour's rather than sell to Vestey's. But the extraordinary position wouTd be shown that the Meat Board objected to the company mortto Armour's, while it consented to .the snle to Vestey's. The Waikohu County Council's consent to a transfer of tlie slaughtering licenses was a mere perfunctory one. He anticipated that it would also be said that the bank wished to sell to Vestey's, as the latter were th<? only known buyers. The bank's desire to fell to Veetey'e, he ar<nied, was no justification for the Minister to set aside the legislative safeguards provided in the Slaughtering Act of. 1908. Responsibility For Sale. Mr. Lysnar said that he put the whole responsibility for the sale to Vestey's on the Minister of Agriculture, not on the Prime Minister and his Government. Sir John Findlay: Well, the Government accepts the whole responsibility, and is not going to make a scapegoat of anybody. • • ■ As against the allegation that the Poverty Bay Farmers' Meat Company was "hopelessly insolvent," Mr. Lysnar read a letter from Mr. Plumer Mountfort, of Gisborne. giving it as his opinion as a banker with 44 years' experience, that "had. the company been given time it could have extricated itself from the somewhat embarassed position in which 1923 found it, and the bank in. my opinion would have incurred no. undue risk in carrying it.over, as was done with a similar company by another institution softie- little time previously.' , Mr. Lysnar said the facts showed that the company was capable of making j profits, and that the bank would have been amply protected by the offer of shareholders .to take up a further £100,000 of shares, and apply the calls in reduction of - the overdraft. . . Mr. Skerrett: They might just as well have offered the moon. (Laughter). Mr. Lysnar argued at considerable length that the general question of trusts and combines came within, the scope of order of reference. The commission adjourned until tomorrow.