Mr Holyoake Promises To Publish Mill Letter

Press, Volume CI, Issue 29767, 9 March 1962, Page 14

Mr Holyoake Promises To Publish Mill Letter

A promise to publish a letter from the chairman of Smith and Nephew, Ltd., regarding the termination of the Nelson cotton mill agreement was given by the Prime Minister (Mi Holyoake) in Oamaru last evening.

He was speaking in support of the National Party candidate in the Waitaki by-election (Mr A. D. Dick).

To an audience of about 400, which was fairly liberally laced with interjectors, the Prime Minister also forecast that the amount of compensation to be paid to the mill company would be about £250,000, “or a little more.”

The Labour Party had endeavoured to make big politi. cal capital out of the mill question, said the Prime Minister. “But they have skated lightly over the points that really matter. “Mr Nash refers to the termination as a base act,” said Mr Holyoake. “The only base act was in the Labour Government saddling the people of New Zealand with such a burden. Mr Nordmeyer said it was a shameful thing. The shameful thing was Labour’s agreement and the way they went about it. “It is clear that the motives in establishing a mill were based on political expediency. The agreement itself was in the same mould — clumsily negotiated and badly drafted, badly worded and ’impossible to interpret.”

Labour members of Parliament and ministers had not been consulted, and as in the case of the Alcan and Comalco agreements. Labour’s left hand did not know what its right hand was doing. That was the case, said Mr Holyoake with Mr Nordmeyer’s letter to the Aluminium Company of Canada, of which there was no record on departmental files.,

“Many accusations were

made when Mr Nordmeyer spoke down here last week, but no explanation was offered about the disappearance of this letter which made such important promises. When Mr Nash spoke here in Oamaru, he told a questioner to ’ask Mr Nordmeyer’ when he was asked about the Alcan agreement. Mr Nash apparently did not know. No wonder there was confusion and mismanagement. Industries established in New Zealand must be given proper protection and assistance, but I cannot think of a worse industry than a comprehensive cotton mill.

Mr Holyoake had not been speaking long when an interjector asked: “Why don’t you publish the letter?” “I have cabled London for authority to publish it,” said Mr Holyoake. “If I get authority I shall publish it. but it is the company’s letter ” The interjector: You have been given permission. It was in the paper Mr Holyoake: That was a M>- Mullins. I don’t know who Mr Mullins is. I have never met him. “We have been criticised for permitting the establishment of the mill for nine months before terminating the agreement.” he said “Let me make it quite clepr that the first suggestion for the termination of the agreement came from the company itself in a letter from Mr Whittaker dated September 4. 1961. In that letter Mr Whittaker offered to withdraw from the agreement though he hoped it would not be necessary. "The company for the first time offered to withdraw from the agreement on the payment of compensation. Until that date we considered the agreement binding, even though we did not like it and thought it should be honoured.

“At no stage whatsoever did the Government approach the company proposing the termination of the agreement." M> Holyoake said that the company had written this letter when it became aware

there was controversy about the mill in New Zealand. An interjector: Pressure groups? Mr Holyoake: Quite right. Fintan Patrick Walsh. Well, he was one of them. “Until we got all the information. until we exhausted the resources of our departments, of outside information and of the company’s information we did not withdraw from the agreement,” the Prime Minister continued. “There is unwarranted talk of pressure groups. Naturally the people who are experts on cotton, the people who deal in it and make it up, made representations on a question affecting them closely. That is right and proper, but during the negotiations we heard in full all sides of the question.” The estimate for compensation was well below £500,000, said the "Prime Minister. It was most likely to be closer to £250,000 or a little more. “It would have cost that much or double that in higher prices every year. It would have cost that much for the manufacturers to reorganise their factories to take materials produced only in 42in widths” The Prime Minister said that the deciding factor for him on the agreement had been the loss of the right of choice. “The right to choose is the dearest thing in life,” he said. He listed heavy rstrictions of choice of variety of cotton goods, their qualities and patterns, and increased prices as his main objections to the mill.

Mr Holyoake said he supposed Waitaki electors would be tired of hearing the cotton mill arguments. “We will discuss this in Parliament. I suppose, ad nauseam." The Prime Minister denied that the termination of the mill agreement would affect investment in New Zealand or the Dominion’s reputation abroad. The chairman of a Canadian trade mission to New Zealand had just spoken of Canada’s faith in New Zealand, in spite of current economic problems. A British financier with £3 million to invest in Australia or New Zealand had said he had a higher respect for the Dominion and “thought we were better business people,” said Mr Holyoake.