The Meat Pool.

Press, Volume LVIII, Issue 17393, 2 March 1922, Page 6

The Meat Pool.

Despite Mr Masaey's remarks on the subject at Harton yesterday, nothing that has occurred sinoe the producers met in conference in Wellington to discuss the neat pool proposal has caused us to ajter our opinion that the principle underlying the establishment of. the pool is wrong. But nothing is to ha gained at present by further emphasising that view. The Meat Export Obatrol Bill , has become

i law and we can only hope that it may prove as beneficial a measure as its promoters believe it will be. It certainly has this initial advantage, that its administration lies in good hands. The men elected by the producers to represent them on the Board axe men of good repute, skilled farmers, credited by those who know them with considerable business ability, and, ad has been said, inclined to moderation and caution. So far as these five members of the Board are concerned, the Act will be administered with commonsense and a desire to do the best that is possible for the producers, a course of action which may not necessarily mean that the Act will be administered vigorously. Their duties under the Act are set forth in such general terms that the choice of men who will probably move slowly and exercise the powers ivested in them in a moderate spirit, is a matter of great importance. If it is not exactly true that they may do aa much or as little as they choose it is certainly true that they may decide upon the maimer in which they carry out their duties. The Board may determine from time to time the extent to which it is necessary to exercise control over the export of meat, it has full authority to make such arrangements and give such directions " as it thinks proper" for the grading, handling, pooling, and storage of meat, its shipment in such' quantities as it thinks fit, and its Sale and disposal on such terms as it thinks advantageous. There is thus a wide discretion given to the Board, and that discretion, we believe, it will exercise'. At all events there will, we may be sure, no attempt on its part to take the London trade by the throat and demand that it shall do this or that, a 6 might have been the case if the administration of the Act had, by ill fortune, fallen into other hands. Mr Massey is obviously very pleased with the choice of the producers, and his gpeeoh at Marton yesterday was couched in a vein of characteristic optimism. He has the invaluable quality of being able to see the bright side of present conditions without pretending to be blind to the shadows, and New Zealand would be happier and more prosperous if it possessed more men like him. His enthusiasm for the meat pool, it is true, tends to lead him into exaggeration. He enumerated a number of things that had happened jiinoe the producers' conference—the reduction of freeaing charges, freights, and storage charges in London, the assurance from the Port of London Authority of quicker discharge of our cargoes, and the rise in the price of meat—and though he certainly said that he would not claim that all these benefits mre ihe tetuit of the meat pool, he expressed the belief that the pool Bad a great deal to do with , the improvement in . conditions. The /best-that can be ►wd of such a claim is that it is harmless, so long as it does net lead to the creation of any more pools. One rnuct hopi> that there is in store for Mr Massey and the advocates and supporters of the pool, no unpleasant awakening. ■>