"GET TOGETHER."

Auckland Star, Volume LXV, Issue 100, 30 April 1934, Page 5

"GET TOGETHER."

BUTTER MARKETING. BRITISH IV!.P. ON THE QUOTA. a NO WEED FOR ALARM." "We are your most important market—in fact your only market—tut to-day it is unsatisfactory to you and to us. I believe it is possible for the two Governments to get together and make some mutual arrangement by which prices may be more advantageous to your producer." This view was expressed this morning by Captain R. G. Briscoe, a member of the British House of Commons, who arrived by the Aorangi. He has represented Cambridgeshire since 1923, and was Parliamentary private secretary to Mr. W. E. Guinness during his term as Minister of Agriculture from 1925 to 1929. Captain Briscoe is visiting New Zealand on business connected with his firm, Briscoe and Co., Ltd. His father, the head of the company, died in Christchurch recently while oil a tour in the Dominion. "One has to face up to the fact that the general feeling in is that she must have a proper agricultural balance," said Captain Briscoe. "Kb country can really exist without it. England's policy is: Home products first, Empire products second, and foreign products third." "Limit to English Production." When asked why England did not insist that all Empire butter should bd admitted before any foreign importations, Captain Briscoe pointed out that England was a manufacturing country and did a large volume of trade with foreign countries, lie admitted that per capita New Zealand was the heaviest purchaser of British goods in the world, and that the Empire question was one looming large in discussions at the present time. He did not think there was anything to fear in respect of CUI "- tailment of imports from New Zealand,,

but they had to definitely face the issue of preserving tlie English market for British produce. There was no need for alarm as far as New Zealand was concerned, because there was a definite limit to the amount of butter, etc., that England could produce. "A strong Empire feeling has always existed," Captain Briscoe said, "and it is as strong to-day as It ever was. It is always realised that the only way New Zealand can pay interest on loans is by exporting butter to England and we are not going to prejudice those payments. The solution is 'get together.' I ain sure each country will realise the difficulties and the aspirations of the other, and that* satisfactory arrangements will be arrived at." The Exchange Kate. While declining to discuss the Ottawa Conference or exchange rates, Mr. Briscoe expressed the opinion tiiat what was done at Ottawa was good. The agreements were most satisfactory considering . the crisis the world was going through at the time. There was no ill feeling in England in respect of the exchange rate between New Zealand and London. It was considered that New Zealand had a perfect right to look after her own interests in that respect, just as England must consider her own interests. Mr. Briscoe will remain a month or six weeks in New Zealand. While in Auckland he will stay with his sister. Mis. Bevan, in Remuera. He intends going as far south as Invercargill before retuining to Australia, where he stayed three weeks. He will go back to England via India in order to study certain political questions now before the House of Commons.