OVERSEAS FOOD CORPORATION

Press, Volume LXXXVI, Issue 26123, 27 May 1950, Page 7

OVERSEAS FOOD CORPORATION

COMMENT BY FORMER CHAIRMAN

“MADE INTO POLITICAL AUNT SALLY” (Special. Correspondent N.Z.P.A.) LONDON. May 25. In a statement to the “Daily Express,” Sir Leslie Plummer. whose resignation from the chairmanship of the Overseas Food Corporation was announced in the House of Commons on Wednesday, said he had considered resigning last November. “I regretted that I have been made into a political Aunt Sally,” said Sir Leslie Plummer. “I was prepared to go, but my masters wanted me to stay. Now I am going because I agree entirely with the Minister of Food (Mr Maurice Webb) that the scale on which we are now operating the groundnuts scheme is so different from what was contemplated. The blueprint when I took over covered 3,208,000 acres. Now the total acreage contemplated is 600.000. “I believe that there were several schemes we would operate, but as things have turned out we are confined to Tanganyika and the Queensland schemes which I initiated. The most important thing is that the scheme should go on. but it would help if politics were kept out.’’ Sir Leslie Plummer insisted that he had not been dismissed. “There is mutual agreement about my going,” he said. He has served only three of the seven years’ term provided for in his contract with the Government. The controversy over the scheme largely died down when Mr Strachey left the Ministry of Food after the General Election and Mr Webb took over his portfolio. Since then Mr Webb has been engaged in making a detailed survey of the work of the corporation and has announced that reorganisation will be carried out.