QUOTA PROPOSALS

Dominion, Volume 27, Issue 109, 1 February 1934, Page 10

QUOTA PROPOSALS

Statement Not Correct REMARK BY MR. BAXTER In his address at Hie Royal Empire Society’s luncheon iu London on November 28, during which be spoke cm his visit to New Zealand iu connection witli dairv quotas, Mr. Thomas Baxter is reported to have''inferred that the British Minister of Agriculture, Major Walter Elliot, had collaborated witli the Minister of Finance, the Rt. Hon. J. G. Coates, in the memorandum on the qualitative • regulation of exports issued by the latter in May of last year. When invited last evening to comment on this statement Dy Mr. Baxter, Mr. Coates gave it, an emphatic denial. The memorandum, he said, contained his own impressions of what was Jikelv to happen, and no British Minister had had any part in its preparation or compilation in any shape or form. . A verbatim report of Mr. Baxter s speech issued by the secretary of the Royal Empire Society contains the following: “Our Minister, with. I think I am right in saying, Mr. Coates, had issued a memorandum in New Zealand drawing up what he believed to be the position of New Zealand under the proposed quota, and he weighed what he believed to be the advantages to New Zealand with the disadvantages, but he came down in favour ot the quota proposal, and when that memorandum received publicity in New Zealand, the producers took it very badly and, I believe. Mr. Coates had a bad time.”