EXPORT OF MEAT

Evening Post, Volume CXXXI, Issue 83, 8 April 1941, Page 5

EXPORT OF MEAT

BRITAIN'S ATTITUDE

MORE INFORMATION SOUGHT

TEXT OF CABLES

' Remarking that if the Government did not remove the present shackles from industry, restriction of exports would lower the standard of living and make it impossible to avoid a financial crisis, Mr. David Jones, a former chairman of the New Zealand Meat Producers' Board, in an interview yesterday, asked the Minister of Agriculture i (Mr. Barclay) to produce the documents dealing with the negotiations between New Zealand and the Imperial authorities on the question of meat supplies. '' Mr. Jones said that the Minister had taken exception of his statement "that faie Government knew a long time ago that the quantity of meat the Imperial Government Had agreed to accept from the Dominion was to be seriously curtailed." The Minister had also said that it was not till late in December that the first indication was received from the Government of visible shipping restrictions. "Will the Minister give to the farmers and the public the date of the first generous offer for quantities of meat that the Imperial Government offered New Zealand for this season and that the Government refused?" asked Mr. Jones. "Will he give the cables and dates of the other cables upon this question that passed, and the date and final quantity that the Imperial Government cut the Government down to? There was nothing confidential about these cables, for the facts were already known among freezing companies, exporters, and the Meat Board. For the present he accepted the Minister's statement that the .first information of trouble was received late in December. \ GRAVE SITUATION. j . Killings of sheep and lambs to December 14 were 807,805, and to March a 4, the date the Minister called the 'meeting to discuss the grave situation [that had arisen, they were more than 9,000,000. In other words, the Governijr_ent knew almost at the beginning jof the season the problem that faced jit. All the meat was the property of jthe Government because it had agreed ito purchase the meat if the Imperial Government failed to do so, yet it sat 'down and allowed the above quantity to be killed and big quantities of other 'classes of meat to be dealt with in the fusual way, irrespective of its value or jthe possibilities of tinning, till disaster stared them in the face. In March .^nearly 1,000,000 more freight carcasses jof all meat had been killed than in .the previous season. The Minister's | excuse now was "that it was surely to jthe credit of the Government that it re■frained from throwing the country into a panic."