PLIGHT OF FREEZING WORKS

Dominion, Volume 20, Issue 28, 28 October 1926, Page 14

PLIGHT OF FREEZING WORKS

MERGER PROPOSAL NOT PRACTICABLE

The proposal made recently that tfie co-operative freezing companies in New Zealand should merge does not appear to be a practicable proposition. Mr. J. H. Joll (Havelock North) explained at the meeting of the Dominion executive of the New Zealand Fanners' Union yesterday that the shareholders of the Whakatii Company had recently turned down the merger proposal. Mr. Jackson (Wairarapa) said that a meeting of the freezing company in liis district had decided to support the policy of the Meat Board in the matter.

Mr. C. -C. Munro (Auckland) said that he did not know a great deal about the freezing industry, but he did know that the vitals were being chewed out of the co-operative freezing companies in the Dominion, and unless the Government or the Meat Board did something speedily to relieve the situation the New Zealand works would soon be at the mercy of the wealthy overseas’ meat concerns. Mr. W. J. Polson said the trouble was that the big meat concerns would not agree to amalgamate, and they could not fix rates ■which would pay the smaller works, as this would give the bigger works, which could kill and freeze much more cheaply, immense profits. Mr. Joll said the farmers of New Zealand had invested the Meat Board with supreme powers, r-nd the board should step in and take whatever action was necessary. Mr. O. P. Lynch (Paekakariki) declared that there would be no solution of the difficulty until the Meat Board followed the lead of the Dairy Control Board and assumed absolute control.