Mr Holyoake Warns U.S. Against Lamb Quotas

Press, Volume CIX, Issue 32012, 12 June 1969, Page 1

Mr Holyoake Warns U.S. Against Lamb Quotas

(New Zealand Press Association)

WELLINGTON, June 11.

New Zealand has warned the United States that if legislation to impose quotas on lamb imports were enacted, New Zealand-United States relations would suffer irreparable damage. In a forthright letter to President Nixon, the Prime Minister (Mr Holyoake) said that New Zealand could not be expected to play its full part in regional security arrangements unless it had the trading opportunities to provide it with the economic means to do so.

“There is a direct relationship between New Zealand’s capacity to play its part as a good ally and its ability to earn from fair trading opportunities overseas,” said the Prime Minister.

The Prime Minister’s letter was sent to President Nixon last week and released today. Last month the Senate Finance Committee approved a bill which would impose a quota on lamb imports into the United States. The import quota legislation, according to Washington reports, was :“-ched as a rider to a non-controversial bill, already passed by the House of Representatives, that would eliminate tariffs on racehorses returning to the United States after being sent abroad to race.

The bill, said the reports, could be taken up and passed by the Senate at any time, possibly with little or no debate.

“I want you to know,” Mr Holyoake told the President,

“that the New Zealand Government, which is attempting to strengthen its over-all relations with the United States, would regard with the utmost concern any additional restrictions on its exports to your country.” The Prime Minister said restrictive action on New Zealand’s exports to the United States would make it difficult for the Government to justify to New Zealanders its alliance with the United States in other areas.

Mr Holyoake emphasised that New Zealand, which had never received, nor asked, for aid from any other country, did not seek privileged treatment. It merely sought greater freedom to apply its competitive advantage in pastoral products.

“It is within this context — of economic as well as political interdependence—that I ask you to consider the proposed legislation to impose quotas on lamb imports. “Such a measure could, in my view, result in irreparable damage to the United States-New Zealand relationship,” said the Prime Minister.

It was vital to New Zealand, as the world’s largest lamb exporter, to preserve unrestricted access to the United States market for this product. Mr Holyoake said that almost all dairy imports were already under quota in the United States and exports of New Zealand’s other meat products to that country were being limited to avoid quota action. “Exports of agricultural products are responsible for the overwhelming bulk of New Zealand’s overseas earnings, and in respect of the United States, lamb is one agricultural product for which New Zealand has a chance to develop its exports in a modest but, to us, significant way. “It is my firm belief that the volume of lamb which New Zealand is likely to be in a position to export to the United States, will do more good than harm to the American industry,” he said. Neither Government support for wool nor favourable market prices for lamb had induced the American sheep industry to increase production, Mr Holyoake said. “Imports have not offset this decline—far from it—and the amount of lamb in question is derisively small measured against the income level and meat-eating capacity of the United State's.

“I would submit that, rather than constituting a threat to United States producers, New Zealand’s promotion efforts, by preserving the extremely limited taste for lamb and extending that taste to new groups, offer about the only possibility of keeping the American industry alive.” Mr Holyoake emphasised that the Government regarded the issue of unimpeded entry of lamb as a “talisman” of the Nixon Administration’s utterances that freedom to trade was one of the four economic freedoms which were to form the basis of United States trade policy during President Nixon’s term of office.

In terms of this policy, the Prime Minister said, he looked to Mr Nixon’s Administration to take an unyielding stand against the legisla-

tion at present before the Senate.

“I hope you will find it possible to make it known, quickly and decisively, that legislative action to restrict lamb imports will not be tolerated by your Administration,” said Mr Holyoake.