POVERTY BAY MEAT WORKS.

Hawera Star, Volume XLVIII, 18 March 1925, Page 5

POVERTY BAY MEAT WORKS.

SALE TO VESTEY BROS

COMMISSION OF INQUIRY. (BY TELEGRAPH PRESS ASSOCIATION. WELLINGTON, March 17. The Royal Commission appointed to inquire into the administration of the Government in connection with meat export control, aqd particularly the charges made in the House of Representatives by Mr W. D. Lysnar, member for Gisborne, against the action of the Minister for Agriculture (the Hon. W. Ncsworthy) and the Meat Export Control Board ill connection with the sale of certain freezing wol’ks and other property of the Poverty Bay Farmers’ bleat- Company, Ltd., to Vestey Bros., Ltd., was continued this afternoon.

Outlining the case, Mr Lysnar reiterated that the commission was not set up at his request, but as a result of an official statement by the Government. The facts* when they came out, would show that it was not the Government, but Mr Nosworthy, that was the responsible party. “If the Government choose to push their fingers into the fire and get them burnt .they must take the consequences,” Mr jLysnav said. “I am not here to defend them.”

Dealing with his objections to the personnel of the commission, Mr Lysnar said he considered it necessary that persons of judicial experience should have been appointed. The inquiry embraced questions of the utmost importance to the country and to the Empire. It dealt with general administration and then with three particular instances of administration, viz.: (1) The working of the existing laws relating to slaughtering, meat export control, and commercial trusts; (2) the dealings , surrounding the Poverty Bay Farnjers’ Meat Company’s affairs and the sale of those works to Yestey Bros., acknowledged to be the biggest combine in the world; and (3) the action of the chairman of the Meat Board in relation to the non-inclusion of the ship Admiral Codrington in freight contracts and his acquiescence in the sale of the company’s premises to Vestey Bros. The latter questions were minor as. compared with the first, which. ,was of Empire importance. He anticipated that the board and Mr Nosworthy would attempt to magnify the difficulties in the particular cases in order to veil the fact that they had failed to observe greater principle. They would faster on a possible prima facie justification of their particular' acts in order to whitewash their general failure to carry out the policy of the country. It was significant that a Royal Commission was investigating the dangers of trusts in the meat industry in England, and ho hoped the finding would be available before the New Zealand Commission reported. Mr Lvsnar said his main evidence would be directed on the first question —the fight against .trusts and combines, whose plan was to work on the brutal cornering of markets by sheer weight of capital. Prom an economical standpoint there was as much to fear from trusts as there had been from the Germans. Trusts were seeking to dominate the world by finance, just as the Germans were trying to do, by brute force. The simple issue was: Were trusts and combines to dominate or the Government? Apart from the local importance of his two latter questions, there was a great underlying principle involved which seriously affected our commercial morality. If she comm is sion did not properly solve it, it would deal a death blow to the meat, dairy and fruit control boards, for it would be impossible for those boards to retain public confidence, without which they could not exist.

It would probably be averred that, the Minister and the board were justified in-' consenting to the sale to Vesteys because Vesteys had another works in the district and agreed to close them up. The producers of Poverty Bay should not be penalised because Vesteys had works already there. It might be said that there had been some negotiations with Armours’ representative for sale. This would be whollv denied but he admitted that an effort warmade to obtain money from Armours by way of mortgage, subject to the consent of the Government and the board. It was surely the lesser of two evils to mortgage to Armours rather than to sell to Vestevs, but an extraordinary position would be shown, that the Meat Board objected to the company mortgaging to Armours, while it consented to the sale to Vestevs. ' The Waikohu County Council’s consent to the transfer of slaughtering licenses was a mere perfunctory one. Mr Lysnnr anticipated that it would also be said that the shank wished 110 sell to Vesteys, as the latter were the only known buyers. The bank’s desire to sell to Vesteys, he argued, was no justification for the Minister to set aside the legislative safeguards provided, in the Slaughtering Act of 1908. The commission adjourned till the evening, Mr Lysnar intimating he so far had merely touched the fringe of his case.