Common Market MR MARSHALL SEES SOME HOPE FOR N.Z.

Press, Volume CVII, Issue 31504, 19 October 1967, Page 28

Common Market MR MARSHALL SEES SOME HOPE FOR N.Z.

(New Zealand Press Association) DUNEDIN, October 18. Indications that some European statesmen would welcome a more liberal agricultural trade policy provided hope for New Zealand, the Minister of Overseas Trade (Mr Marshall) said today in Dunedin.

The Minister was speaking to the Dunedin branch of the New Zealand Institute of Management about the effect on New Zealand of British entry into the European Economic Community.

After outlining the disastrous effect Britain’s entry would have if special provisions were not made for New Zealand’s farm produce, Mr Marshall said there were signs that the barriers to trade were not indestructible. There were indications that some European statesmen would welcome a trade policy emphasising self-sufficiency less and agricultural trade more.

“One of our hopes is that the ever-increasing cost of the Community’s protectionist agricultural policies will, in the long run, be self-defeat-ing, and that cracks will appear in the protective front

which the community now presents to us,” Mr Marshall said. “We can hope, too, that the influx of ‘new blood’ into the Community in future years—from Britain, Ireland, Norway and Denmark, for example—will bring about a more liberal attitude towards agricultural trade.” New Zealand’s efforts to open and develop good alternative markets to Britain for butter, cheese, lamb and other products would continue, Mr Marshall went on. Reduced tariffs, special import quotas and other arrangements had in the past been obtained from several countries and had provided a base for market development, and efforts must also continue to gain these concessions. “We must, for example, continue to urge the United States to be more liberal in its trading policies, particularly about dairy products," the Minister said.

The problem of dairy marketing, however, had international implications, and in the long term a solution might be an international arrangement.

I Mr Marshall ended by saying he did not forsee an [immediate or abrupt change in New Zealand’s fortunes.