CONTRADICTED.

Auckland Star, Volume LXVI, Issue 43, 20 February 1935, Page 7

CONTRADICTED.

PRESS REPORTS.

MEAT PROPOSALS. Australia Said to Accept Control Plan. BRITISH MINISTERS PUZZLED. (United P.A.-Electrlc Telegraph-Copyright) (Received 11.30 a.m.) LONDON, February 19. Pending a cable from Canberra, Ministers are puzzled .by a Press Agency report of the Commonwealth's acceptance of certain meat proposals. Major Elliot, Minister of Agriculture, made a statement to the "Sydney Sun""Melbourne Herald" representative, in which he said that "no such proposals were submitted to Australia. How could we give the Dominions complete freedom of meat exports with a halfpenny per lb levy against a Id on foreign and simultaneously restrict foreign exports t" The cable message referred to was from Melbourne stated tjiut the Federal Cabinet had decided to agree in principle to the British Government's proposals for the control of the importation of meat into the United Kingdom. The Minister of Commerce, Dr. Earle Page, was reported to have stated that the main points of the British proposals to which the Cabinet had agreed were as follow: — (1) There is to be no restriction on the importation of Dominion meat.

(2) A continuance of the present restrictions on foreign imports. (3) A preferential duty or one penny a lb on foreign and one halfpenny a lb on Empire supplies. The Cabinet still sought modifications of certain of the British proposals, it was said, but had agreed to the main plans as they involved no sacrifice of the Government's anti-restriction policy. The arrangement would operate until the expiration of the agreement between Britain and the Argentine in 193(5. The Commonwealth Government had accepted the British proposals as a satisfactory alternative to the imposition of a levy on meat imports in conjunction with quotas. FLATLY DENIED. New Zealand's Reported Consent To Levy on Beef. 'NO DECISION' SAYS MR. FORBES (By Telegraph.—Parliamentary Reporter.) WELLINGTON, this day. The Prime Minister last night flatly denied the accuracy of the cabled report from London 1 that the New Zealand Government has suggested that it could agree to a levy on imported beef into Britain, but not to a levy on mutton.

Cabinet had considered the Imperial Government's proposals in a general way, said Mr. Forbes, and he and Mr. Coates had discussed various aspects of the position with members of the Meat Producers' Board, who arc in Wellington. '"But we have come to no decisions whatever," he added, "our discussions so far being on general lines.

"It may ultimately resolve itself into a decision that no final agreement should be settled until there has been a further conference in England, because this arrangement will be of the very greatest importance to the Dominion, and -full time must be taken for consideration. As Major Elliot says, this matter cannot y be rushed." .

QUOTA ABANDONED. BRITAIN'S CHANGE OF POLICY. (British Official Wireless.) RUGBY, February 19. In the discussion in the House of Commons on the resolution for a threemonths' extension of the subsidy granted to cattle' producers in Britain, the Minister of Agriculture, Mr. Walter Elliot, said the Government had come to the conclusion that while some regulation of the market might °e found desirable in order to prevent wide fluctuations in supplies and prices, it could not accept the sole responsibility for the regulation of the market. There was a great deal to be said for orderly markets, but this was a task which, in the opinion of the Government, could be hest undertaken by the overseas suppliers themselves. Overseas producers should be left free to send such quantities to the English market as they themselves desired. The Government maintained that the regulation of imports which other countries wished to undertake, as in the case of wheat, must be hammered out in the first instance by themselves. In reply to a question, Mr. Elliot said: "We want the Dominions and foreign suppliers to send freely as long as we can insulate the home producer." Sir Percy Harris (Lib., Bethnall Green) interpreted the Minister's statement as meaning that the policy of quantitative regulation, otherwise quotas, had been abandoned, and a levy or duty on imported meat was now the Government's policy. Mr. Elliot agreed that Sir Percy had correctly interpreted the import of his statement.