QUOTA PROBLEMS

Dominion, Volume 28, Issue 58, 1 December 1934, Page 22

QUOTA PROBLEMS

Threat to Meat and Dairying

Industries

DIFFICULTIES TO BE FACED

“In New Zealand the trends of the last 12 months have been similar to those revealed In Australia,” said Mr. Thomas Bnekland, president of the Bank of New South Wales, In his address at the annual meeting in Sydney yesterday. “Whereas Australians think of British quota policy mainly in terms of the threat which is involved for the meat industry, this problem presents itself to New Zealanders more in terms of butter. The principles involved, however, in the two cases are much the same.

“The future of the Australian meat trade Is perhaps more directly bound up with overseas policy than is the in lure of any other part of our economic life and a considerable part of the thought of those who tire responsible for directing Australian policy must inevitably be devoted to a consideration of what is likely to happen when the term of the Ottawa agreements comes to an end. “Any enforced restriction upon export and production would cause the most serious upheaval in every, part of Australia’s economic organisation, and this fact has been so clearly realised that this year no conclusion satisfactory to all the parties interested could have been .expected from the discussions of the subject which were initiated during the course of the year. It has recently been reported that the question has again been reopened from the British end, and so long as the basic facts remain upon which suggestions for restriction rest, it is necessary to insist upon the grave risks which they carry, not only for the Dominions, but for all who have business or financial relations with them.” Mr. Buckland said the Australian dairying industry was now feeling the effects of the substitute scheme of organisation which took the place of the Paterson scheme when the growing importance of exports made it increasingly difficult to achieve the end in view by using the machinery of the Paterson scheme. The result had been a higher internal price level for butter, while export quotas w’ere regulated monthly. “The Australian consumer has not yet had quite the same experience of paying guaranteed high prices as manyof the peoples of Europe have experi- s enced. in recent years,” he continued But so far no one has been able to discover the limit of their enduranice and many Australians are apparently prepared to accept further extensions of this policy without protest. The experience of the butter industry In Australia gives, however, the clearest proof that schemes such as these, however attractive they may appear, are in the long run disappointing just because they fail to get down to the root of the trouble wjilch they are designed to meet.

“It is certainly undesirable to exaggerate the difficulties under which we are likely to labour during the <next few years, but at the same time nothing is to be gained jby pretending that things are other than in fact they are. There is indeed very good reason for believing (that a prompt realisation of the fundamental character of our difficulties may lead to their prompt disappearance or at least to the adoption of ; a policy which will, so to speak, outflank them.

“We in Australia, in common with people in every other part of .-the world, are still very far from having reached the average' level of real income which the of science entitles us to expect. To make full use of all the opportunities which are now opening to us, there must be drastic reorganisation jin some parts of our traditional economy.’ It is no longer rational to think exclusively in terms of extending our agricultural and pastoral production, 1 “If our standard of living is to rise, an increasing proportion of our capital and labour must- be jemployed in the industries which are appropriate to the production of things which people with rising real. Incomes will iwnnt to buy. The adaptations that tire necessary will not be easy, and demand the active co-operation of all who 'have any responsibility for the organisation of our capital market. "But there is no -reason for supposing that the difficulties tire Insuperable, and if they are squarely faced, both Australia and Now Zealand -can look forward with confidence to prosperity surpassing anything we have known in the past and based upon more-stable foundations.”