OYSTER INDUSTRY.

Auckland Star, Volume LXVI, Issue 236, 5 October 1935, Page 10

OYSTER INDUSTRY.

CONTROL QUESTION. PRIVATE ENTERPRISE PLAN. POACHING IN THE NORTH. (By Telegraph.—Parliamentary Reporter.) WELLINGTON, Frida y. Complaint was made in the House of Representatives to-day by Air. A. J. Stallworthy (Democrat, Eden) that the Auckland oyster industry was not being properly developed by the Government, and he strongly urged that private enterprise should be allowed to enter the field. The east coast of the North Island offered almost unlimited scope for such developments. Air. H. Al. Rushworth (Country party, Bay of Islands) supported Mr. Staliworthy, saying that the output could be trebled or quadrupled with private enterprise. Highly skilled workers were not required and unemployed could be utilised. The Alinister of Alarine, Air. Cobbe, said the oyster took a long time to grow—something like four years—and the unemployed would have to wait a long time for a return. It had been stated that the Government had a monopoly in the oyster field, but it should be widely known that if the Government did not watch over the industry oysters would disappear from the North altogether. He mentioned that in the Bay of Islands, despite inspectors being on the watch, poachers took a big tod of oysters.

Air. Stallwo'rthy said the Alinister was careiul not to say how the oyster was to disappear. Was it. by natural pests, such as the borer I The same might be said of any other industry. The tru.h remained that there was a vast potential field lor the development of the oyster industry in the North Island. Ihe present monopoly by the Government was a. mistake and the consumer had to suffer.