MORE PRODUCTION

Evening Post, Volume CXXXIX, Issue 133, 7 June 1945, Page 9

MORE PRODUCTION

FERTILISERS WANTED

P.A. DUNEDIN, June 6. The opinion that considerably better results would accrue from increased production than could ever be achieved by rationing in this country was expressed by the chairman of directors (Mr. L. J. Stevens) in his address at the annual meeting of shareholders of the Dominion Fertiliser Company, Ltd. In any constructive programme of increased production an increase in the ration of phosphatic fertiliser had to be a fundamental consideration,* Mr. Stevens said. The solution lay not so much iii New Zealand's hands as in the hands of the Mother Country itself. He felt that Britain did not appreciate sufficiently the connection of increased production with the factor of adequate supplies of superphosphate. Appeals which had been made for the provision of ships to bring additional cargoes of rock phosphate to New Zealand had so far failed to secure results. The diversion of shipping to bring a matter of five or six cargoes of rock phosphate from North Africa to New Zealand and a cargo of sulphur from Texas should not upset very seriously the war programme of the United Nations, and that was all that was required to give an increase of the present top-dressing ration of lcwt per cow to 2cwt per cow.

"So far, the Mother Country has not seen fit to make this provision," Mr. Stevens said. "This service rather than rationing in New Zealand is a necessity if we are to render the help that Britain requires. The question then is whether the British Ministi-y of Food is prepared to bring the necessary pressure on the Ministry of War Shipping to see that full and ample imports' of raw materials are available for conversion into .superphosphate. Here lies a substantial solution to the food'fehrrtage of Great Britain and the Continent."