MEAT EXPORT.

Auckland Star, Volume LXX, Issue 53, 4 March 1939, Page 13

MEAT EXPORT.

QUOTA QUESTION.

MINISTER'S STATEMENT.

REPLY TO MR. COATES.

(By Telegraph.—Own Correspondent.)

WELLINGTON, Friday,

Criticism by the Right Hon. J. G. Coates, of the Government's negotiations for the export of New Zeaaond meat, has been replied to by the Minister of Marketing, the Hon. W. Nash, who states that New Zealand will remember that Mr. Coates was an early advocate of quotas and more than anyone else advocated New Zealand's acceptance of the principle of the quota. Mr. Coates, at Ottawa, signed the first formal agreement and provided that the Dominion's exports of mutton and lamb to the United Kingdom would be held within a definitely fixed limit. Further, butter and checse quotas had been advocated. Dominion Allocation.

Mr. Nash remarks that it had been nlleged that New Zealand mutton and lamb allocation for the first year was 4,000,000 cwt, to be increased by five per cent in each of the two succeeding years. That statement was incorrect. The published version of the agreement, signed by Mr. Coates, bound New Zealand for the year 1933 to mutton and lamb shipments not exceeding those for the twelve months ended June 30, 1932, which was 3,908,000cwt. Mr. Coates could not produce evidence from any reliable source that he, or any Government with which he was associated- at any time, received for New Zealand an allocation of 4,000,000cwt.

Mr. Nash states that the text of the Ottawa agreement and Mr. Coates' letter to the British Government, were available for anyone to read. The agreement left the British Government free to regulate, reduce or restrict New Zealand's meat, whether mutton, lamb, beef or pork, as from June 30, 1934. There was no colour of right to a five per cent increase, nor to any basic quota, apart from the 3.908,000 figure, for 1933, and immunity from reduction for six months thereafter.

Australia's Share. Mr. Nash also states that Mr. Coates got for New Zealand precisely the same as Australia got, and it could not be seriously suggested that the British Government undertook to give to Mr. Coates a five per cent increase, and gave 110 undertaking to Australia on those lines. In a statement made in the

House of Representatives on October 13, 1932, Mr. Coates said that it was manifestly fair as between one Dominion and another that substantially similar c-onditions should apply to all, and that the Ottawa agreement satisfied that requirement.

Mr. Nash eays he has no wish, to parade subsequent arrangements, in which the Labour Government and to some extent himself were responsible, but they had obtained from the British Government, in 1938, a definite quota, which allowed New Zealand to send 4,010,000cwt of lamb and mutton, which was a figure well above export requirements. Foreign Cut. In conclusion, Mr. Nash pointed out, that while New Zealand had been subjected to a restriction of three per cent, the cut on foreign mutton and lamb was ten per cent. All through the discussions the Labour Government and the Minister had worked in the closest touch with the Meat Producers' Board and he did not think that party politics should, or would disturb that relationship.