MR DOIDGE’S STATEMENT

Press, Volume LXXXVII, Issue 26538, 28 September 1951, Page 8

MR DOIDGE’S STATEMENT

SOUTHLAND FARMER’S CRITICISM (New Zealand Press Association) AUCKLAND, September 27. Mr Doidge would gain a great deal more respect with the British people and with the New Zealand farmers if he set himself up as a hard-headed businessman and drove a firm bargain,’’ said Mr Noel McGregor, a prominent Southland sheep station owner, when he arrived in Auckland with his wife by air from Honolulu. Mr McGregor, who has been in Britain, Europe, and America, since last March, was commenting on the statement in London by the new High Commissioner that the Dominion was prepared to export meat to Britain at £7l a ton, while Argentina was being paid £l3O and £l4O a ton. Mr McGregor, who is chairman of the runholders’ section of Federated Farmers (Southland), added: “Here we have a politician like Mr Doidge who wishes to ingratiate himself with the British, saying that New Zealand is prepared and willing to give away her meat at Woolworth prices. The farmers have definitely been robbed of millions annually, and their loss is also the country’s loss. It is an outstandingly weak trade agreement that we have made with Britain, and those responsible for it should be reprimanded.

“Our meat is being thrown away, ant l I blame our Meat Board entirely

for the muddle we have got ourselves into,” he said. “The Meat Board has become a tool of the Government instead of working for the farmer. “Government trading should be stopped,” he continued. “Governments are poor businessmen. The meat trade should go back to the meat traders like Swifts and Armours, to name two. They have experience in handling and disposing of meat. They would sell our product to the best advantage. World market value is what we want.”

It would be impossible to buy 11b of meat outside Britain to-day under 7s or Bs, said Mr McGregor, but New Zealand meat was being sold for something like 15d per lb. One meat company had told him that if it could handle New Zealand meat to-day it would get 3s per lb for it on the market. He said that New Zealand was receiving a third of the value of its meat according to to-day’s world market.