FIGURES SAID TO BE WRONG

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

FIGURES SAID TO BE WRONG

(New Zealand Press Association) WELLINGTON, September 27. The general manager of the New Zealand Meat Board (Mr J. J. Evans), commenting on the statement at Auckland by Mr Noel McGregor, said it would appear that Mr McGregor was taking as correct the erroneous figures quoted by Mr Doidge. Mr Evans said that the Argentine was receiving from Britain £l3O a ton for lamb under the latest agreement. Australia was reported also to have negotiated a price of £l3O a ton for lamb under a recent agreement. The New Zealand price at present was equivalent to £ll2 a ton, and New Zealand’s price for the new season, which was still under negotiations, was certain to rise. If New Zealand received the same increase as the Australians, New Zealand lamb would be sold to Britain at £l3O a ton. Mr Evans said that if Mr McGregor was right in claiming that New Zealand lamb was being sold at a third of its real value then it would be selling for about £4O a ton, but this was far from true. Was Mr McGregor perhaps falling into the error of comparing New Zealand’s bulk sale price to Britain with the retail price of meat in a London restaurant, or with the price paid to the British farmer which was bolstered with a heavy subsidy? Although New Zealand meat was not sold on a basis of so much a ton, the actual over-all price at present paid by Britain, taking into account all classes of meat, was £93 a ton, said Mr Evans, and that price was clearly going to be increased soon.