Freezing Works Deny Breach Of Agreement

Press, Volume XCVIII, Issue 28907, 29 May 1959, Page 12

Freezing Works Deny Breach Of Agreement

(New Zealand Press Association)

WELLINGTON, May 28. The freezing industry would not agree that it had broken an agreement to the investigation of its accounts as a condition on which it was granted freedom, in 1951, to fix charges, the commission of inquiry into the meat industry was told today.

Giving evidence on behalf of the North and South Island Freezing Companies’ Association, Mr M. H. Cordery, assistant manager of the New Zealand Refrigerating Company, told Mr A. J. H. Jeavons, counsel for Primary Producers’ Co-Opera-tive Society, that, in 1951, the association had agreed it would submit its accounts to the Market Advisory Council and officers of the Meat Board, on the condition it was permitted to fix charges. In May, 1956, the association was advised the Minister deemed such an investigation necessary. The association objected and the Minister invoked section 58 of the Meat Act, 1939, to require the association to provide the accounts. The association did so in September, 1957, and the figures dated to the 1954-55 and 1955-56 seasons. Mr Jeavons: On what grounds did you go behind your undertaking for two years? Did you not deem it necessary? Is that your answer to a breach of the undertaking which, it appears, was committed? Mr Cordery: We would not admit to any breach. The division of opinion arose out ot whether the investigation was deemed necessary. not on whether we had given any pledge. Mr ’Jeavons: I am sure you are not going to stand there and tell the commission that on tne matter of the undertaking given by you that you should be the arbiter or whether it was necesSi> Mr Cordery: We had some right to object. Those two years occurred when freezing works

had taken knocks and the accounts were sick. Mr Jeavons: Very advantageous for you. One would have thought you could not have got there quickly enough.