MEAT EXPORT BOARD

Evening Star, Issue 17928, 25 March 1922, Page 11

MEAT EXPORT BOARD

THE PRIME MINISTER EXPLAINS

Certain statements made at a meeting of the .Dominion Executive, of the Farmers’ Union dealing with the election of iho Meat Export Control Board were referred to by tho Prime Minister at Wellington yesterday in the course of an interview.

Mr Massey stated that one of the speakers was reported as bavins said; “ Instead of being elected by the producers, the board virtually had been nomin<ated by tho Government. The appointment of the board had been a hole-and-corner business, and tho fanners in his district had no confidence whatever in a board so constituted,” Captain Colbeck had said that the Government had had a majority on tho committee, and had elected whom it liked. Another member said it was a Government board.

“These gentlemen,” said Mr Massey, “ evidently do not understand the position. At a very largely attended meeting of producers held in Wellington in January a committee of fourteen was elected —seven from the North Island and seven from the South Island, With them tho six members of Parliament who had taken part in drafting the original scheme were the committee appointed by the regulation under the Act to elect tho first members of the Control Board. Five members wore accordingly elected, leaving two to bo appointed by the Government, and another who was recommended by the stock and station agents. The two members appointed by the Government were Mr David Jones and Mr A. E. Harding, tho latter particularly representing the Auckland and Taranaki districts, which up to then had not been given a representative. Tho Government took no part in the election of the board, and had positively nothing to do with it. “1 think Mr W. D. Hunt, the nominee of the stock and station agents on the board, is personally interested in farming pursuits, and I am quite certain that ail the other members of the board arc {armors, and have tho confidence of tho farming community, not oijjy in their own district, but right through the Dominion where they arc known. The Control Board has started well, and I believe it will do really good work - .”