N.Z. OFFER REFUSED

Evening Post, Volume CXXIV, Issue 107, 2 November 1937, Page 10

N.Z. OFFER REFUSED

BRITAIN CRITICISED

LABOUR M.P. AND SUPPLIES

OF FOODSTUFFS

(Received November 2, 2.15 p.m.)

LONDON, November 1,

Dr. H. Dalton (Labour), in the Hous» of Commons, said that .the Labour Party would welcome an increase in the production of home-grown foodstuffs and had no objection to subsidies.

"A very able Minister from New Zealand, Mr. Walter Nash, recently offered to send to England an unlimited supply of dairy products and suggested that New Zealand, after- deducts ing freights and other costs, would devote the rest of the exchange obtained to the purchase -of British manufactures/ he said. "It was a wonderfully good offer, but the Government turned it down. We would have gained a valuable market for manufactures and an increasing supply of foodstuffs. The i action was typical of the Government's policy of planned scarcity." •

The Chancellor of the Exchequer, Sir John Simon, replied that Mr.. Nash's proposals were very carefully examined and appeared to involve certain ear-marking of exchange. Such schemes were difficult to operate. The Government did not put any obstacles in the way of unlimited -.. supplies of foodstuffs' "There is no statutory quantitative regulation of the principal foodstuffs from the Dominions,1 * he said, "but consultations: with a vieyr to orderly control of the market."