Evening Post WEDNESDAY, MARCH 26, 1941. FREEZER GLUT: WHAT REMEDIES?

Evening Post, Volume CXXXI, Issue 72, 26 March 1941, Page 8

Evening Post WEDNESDAY, MARCH 26, 1941. FREEZER GLUT: WHAT REMEDIES?

Interference with the shipment to Britain of New Zealand meat is one of the risks of war, and we can find no overwhelming evidence that either the British Government or the New Zealand Government is to blame for the present obstacles to export. What the New Zealand Government was facing in the House of Representatives last night was not censure for a war-created difficulty, but a difference of opinion as to how that difficulty should be met. The first question created by the shipping crisis is: How can the consequent glut in the refrigerated meat stores be avoided? The advisory committee recommended that the glut should be avoided by various measures, including the putting of certain surplus meat "through the digesters," the principal purpose of which is to manufacture manure. The Government objected, removed the committee's "digesters" proposal from the remedial measures, and added a

measure of its own —restrictions on the admittance^ to freezing works of wethers, and baconers. Farmers interested in pig production for bacon, and farmers (such as the high country farmers) who cannot (for seasonal and other reasons) keep the wethers on their land, have a very obvious and direct financial interest in this decision, whereby the Government declines to relieve refrigerated store space through extra use of the manure outlet, and adds its own measures of restriction on the admittance to freezing works of the products on which the above-men-tioned farmers vitally rely. Perhaps it should be added here that, in the

later phases of last night's debate, the Minister of Finance (Mr. Nash) is reported as saying that "the Government did not intend to exclude wether mutton from the freezing works altogether." There can be difference of opinion as to whether the first step is to put freezing works restrictions on sections of the farming industry that are suffering through no fault of their own, or whether the first step is to increase the amount of meat which, on being converted into manure, will cease to be a tax on refrigerated space. The freezing works door might be kept open to wethers and baconers for a longer period if the door to the manure \^orks were opened wider. Some people would see in the greater manufacture of manure the key to a deferred higher production. But Mr. Barclay, Minister of Marketing, said last night that to send surplus sheep and cattle to the manure section of the freezing works would be to destroy food:

The Government did not think it had come to the stage when the country should destroy good meat. That was the vital difference between the committee's recommendations and the Government's plans.

It will be noted that the Minister's first sentence does not exclude the possibility that the stage may be reached at which the manure production proposal may have to be implemented. His disinclination to divert meat from food purposes to manure purposes is understandable; and the feelings of the farmers who rely on freezing of wethers and baconcrs are also understandable. Clearly, New Zealand is already facing one of the economic sacrifices concerning which the Prime Minister, Mr. Fraser, has warned the country. The national aim is to share sacrifices; and there is room for argument as to whether the Government's own plan of freezing works restrictions, and its still imperfectly understood plan for helping those farmers who are particularly affected, amount to an equitable sharing of sacrifice. But to extend the argument in the direction of charging the Govern-

ment jyrtb, jresponsibilit^ for war-

created surprises seems to be a waste

of effort,

Mr. Barclay is reported as saying that about 300,000 wethers and 600,000 ewes have been shut out of the freezing works by the Government's decision. It is known that there arc farmers, and probably not a few, who cannot carry on their land the excluded sheep; but the Minister contends that "in general there should be no difficulty about carrying the stock." Possibly this statement will be further challenged from the farmer side; and it is clear that tlie question bristles with technical difficulties. But to a layman it will appear that New Zealand is freezing upwards of a million less farm animals than it would have frozen and is keeping them in the country, and is not working the digesters overtime. The committee recommended that "the method of

payment to freezing companies for slock purchased, but not placed in store for export," should become a matter for discussion. The committee also recommended that the Government should restate its purchase basis for meat, irrespective of export. Mr. Nash said last night that "the Government had undertaken - to purchase all meat for export and was going to keep that promise.-" Earlier in the debate Mr. Barclay, when asked by Mr. Bodkni "how the Government proposed to pay for the meat left out of the freezing works," replied that the Government did not propose to buy every sheep shut out. It had never promised to buy the capital stock of the country, but the promises made would bo kept. On this point, and on the means of preserving the local meat market price in balance between the ex-1 eluded farmer and the local consumer, there is need for clarification. The desire to avoid controversial friction in wartime, conveyed by the Prime Minister in his expression of willingness to postpone the State tenants' Joan franchise clause of the Local Elections Bill, should animate all the proceedings of Parliament. In other words, criticism should be con-

structive. Existing Governments are not to blame for the shipping crisis. Perhaps the same thing cannot be said for past Governments or for parlies llial opposed timely expenditure on sea, air, and land defences —an expenditure that, it is now plain, would have protected New Zealand from many losses. But that is another story. The work in hand is to find a practical policy for dealing with the insulation that is being forced on us, and for which, notwithstanding all the discussions of

yesteryear, our preparations are few and inadequate.