DAIRY CONTROL BOARD

Greymouth Evening Star, 15 June 1927, Page 12

DAIRY CONTROL BOARD

MR. S. PATERSON’S DEMAND. (Per Press Association.) WELLINGTON, June 14. In a lengthy letter to Mr. Grounds, Chairman of the Dairy Produce Control Board, Messrs Morison, Smith and Morison, solicitors for Mr. Strongach Paterson, the late Government representative on the Board’s London Agency, call attention to the fact that Mr. Paterson had noted various New Zealand newspapers, including Dairy Produce Exporter of March 26 last, giving what purported to be Mfr. Grounds’s version of Mr. Paterson’s actions in the capacity of Government representative. Mr. Paterson was unable to reply at once, by reason of his distance from New Zealand, and to do so now would be futile. Therefore, he did not consider it desirable at this stage to enter into a discussion on the merits or demerits of the price fixation of dairy produce in London—an issue which he says has already been settled at the expense of the New Zealand farmers —but Mr. Paterson desires to repudiate what he regards as a gross misrepresentation on the London Agency. Therefore, he would welcome an opportunity to have his actions fully investigated before a Royal Commission, or any other appropriate tribunal. Mr. Paterson says he further considers that Mr. Grounds, in his attacks on him (Paterson), referred to conversations which Mr Paterson understood were confidential, and, further, that Mr. Grounds’s attack contained complete mis-statements of fact, distorting general aim and effect of his (Paterson’s) work. Mr. Paterson expects to return to New Zealand in October, when he would be ready to participate in a public investigation into his own actions, and what he terms the Board’s disastrous policy.