Quota For Meat In U.K. Believed Certain

Press, Volume CIII, Issue 30471, 19 June 1964, Page 8

Quota For Meat In U.K. Believed Certain

HAMILTON, June 18.

“I, myself, have no doubt that we shall have to accept a quota for our meat on the British market in the quite near future,” Mr C. Hilgendorf, of Sherwood in MidCanterbury, who is a member of the Meat Board, told the Ruakura farmers’ conference. “If this is combined with the end of the artificially-in-duced expansion of Home production it will not be an entirely one-sided bargain. What we must do in the next few months is to point out again and again to the British public that the larger the share of the market ear-marked for the Home kill the more expensive it is likely to be either for the consumer or the taxpayer. The larger the share allotted to us the cheaper it will be for probably both the consumer, and the taxpayer.” Mr Hilgendorf said that both political parties in the. United Kingdom were committed to the principle of a managed market for meat as they were to the support or feather-bedding of their agricultural industry. “New Zealand can scarcely complain of this since we have a managed market for such things as bicycles and many of our other industries lead a superlatively featherbed existence,” he commented. The kind of deal that had been offered to New Zealand by the British Government when-, discussions had been held earlier was the supply of the present quantity of exports to the United Kingdom with some tolerance between years, but for sheep meats, an expansion factor of only a half per cent. “It is interesting to note that what the British asked was almost exactly what we had been doing over the last 10 years, though there is no certainty we would find it easy to do in the future.” Imports Into the United Kingdom from New Zealand had fallen from 320,000 tons in 1953-54 to 310;000 tons in 1962-63, he said.

(From Our Own Reporter)