SERIOUS SETBACK

Evening Post, Volume CXXVII, Issue 76, 31 March 1939, Page 10

SERIOUS SETBACK

LABOUR POLICY BLAMED

MR. COATES'S ACTIONS

DEFENDED

(Special to the "Evening Post.")

PALMERSTON N., March • 30.

What he described as the serious setback inflicted on New Zealand's meat industry by the policy -of the Government was referred to by the Hon. J. G. Cobbe, M.P., during an address in Rongotea last night. Mr. Cobbe also defended the arrangement made in Ottawa by the previous Minister, Mr. Coates. The New Zealand farmer was deeply 1 concerned at the reduction in the number of sheep and lambs he might exIport to Great Britain, said Mr. Cobbe. The matter reeded very tactful handling as any reduction would be a serious matter for the Dominion. j Unfortunately, at the very time when ! tact and common sense were most needed, the Government came blundering in and imposed restrictions on the i reciprocal trade New Zealand did with j the best and only really dependable I customer the had for her farming produce. Mr. Coates, who so ably and successfully negotiated the old arrangement for the sale of meat—an arrangement which had been of enormous value to New Zealand—did not mince matters when criticising the newly - J imposed reduction. He said: "Apathy and incapacity on the part of the Government have resulted in the infliction of a grave in jury on New Zealand's meat trade. . . . New Zealand has been badly let down by the present Minister of Marketing."

The Minister had filled more than a newspaper column in an attempt to reply to Mr. Coates, said Mr. Cobbe, but no amount of verbal wriggling would alter the fact that under the Minister's management a serious setback had been inflicted on one of the country's major industr:__.

Mr. Coates, who made the arrangement in Ottawa, which proved of great benefit to the sheep farmers of the Dominion, was a farmer and understood the farmer's business. The Minister who had agreed to a reduction of the number of sheep and lambs New Zealand might export was certainly not a farmer, but unfortunately today he controlled the sale of the produce which belonged to the farmer.