AGAINST QUOTA

Evening Post, Volume CXV, Issue 123, 27 May 1933, Page 5

AGAINST QUOTA

VIEWS OF FARMERS

ALL RESTRICTIONS OPPOSED

"The policy has been designed to fit in with a deficient and declining monetary system," said Mr. H. M. Rushworth, M.P., speaking on the suggested butter quota, which was discussed at the ■ Farmers' Union provincial conference at, Whangarei on Wednesday (reports the "Auckland Star")- "It is part of the plan of sabotage and the destruction of the means of production by the abandonment of land. "Unemployment is another phase, it is the generation that is growing up that must be our present consideration. Unless we make the world better to Jive in- they will inevitably belong to the legion of the damned. The policy of restriction not only affects butter, it affects professional men, craftsmen, and every branch of industry." Mr. Rushwortli said the idea should be to increaso every kind of natural wealth until the world reached saturation, point. It should not be said thatthere was too much production while a starving woman or child remained. On moral and ethical grounds the quota must be fought. He expressed the conviction that if Great Britain imposed the quota it was the duty of the Government of New Zealand to purchase the surplus on behalf of the nation and to make a present of it, say, to the Government of Japan. Mr. W. Boyd said that he felt very perturbed after reading the statement made by Mr. Coates. On the grounds that at the end of the agreement Britain would bo able to fix arbitrary restrictions according to her own wishes, Mr. E. Marples thought the Dominion might be wise to do the inoro gracious thing while it still had a say in the matter. If a 6 per cent, restriction would be so disastrous a thing for New Zealand, how much moro would a 12 per cent, restriction be for its chief competitor, Denmark? Mr. Topham, Morrinsvillq, suggested that the surplus be turned into a byproduct for foeding pigs during the winter. A remit was carried expressing alarm at the suggestion of a quota, and urging the Government to reduce the protectivo duties on British goods in order to regain Britain's goodwill. To this was added the statement that it should be made clear that any restriction meant New Zealand's inability to pay its overseas debt.