MEAT BOARD

Manawatu Standard, Volume L, Issue 14, 12 December 1929, Page 3

MEAT BOARD

REPLY TO A MEMBER. Per Press Association. HAWERA, Dec. 10. In a letter to the Star to-day, Mr C. D. Dickie, chairman of the Patea Freezing Company, replies to Mr J. Trotter, a member of the Meat Board. Mr Dickie states that though cattle and pigs pay the levy, tho Meat Board is a close corporation, the exporters of beef and pork having no vote. Mr Dickie refers to his own gratuitous services to the producers, and in reply to Mr .Trotter’s suggestion that in standing as a candidate for the board he (Mr Dickie) was seeking a “big salary,” he says further: “If Mr Trotter believes that the purchase of the white elephant storage site in London was the cause of storage rates being reduced he is capable of believing that the Admiral Codrington caused a reduction of shipping freights. If the Meat Board was the cause of the reduction in freight rates from New Zealand to tho United Kingdom, what caused the Australian and South African rates to fall lower in proportion than ours? Last season insurance rates on boneless beef and sundries rose from 25s to 105 s, less 10 per cent, and 2£ per cent. I rang up the Meat Board’s manager and pointed out that the Dairy Board had secured a reduction in rates* on blitter and cheese and asked what his hoard was doing in the matter. Tho reply I received was that he did not know the board’s policy in regard to the matter. “I agree that the board has done a lot of advertising; so has the Empire Marketing Board,” Mr Dickie continued. “At the same time I consider that there is much overlapping and waste in this connection. I think a)l our produce should be advertised through one board, and also shipping and insurance rates arranged through one channel. The cost of electing two members of the Meat Board last year was £583 8s 2d, compared with £l3O. tho cost of electing three members of tiie Dairy Board. “Mr Trotter is quite wrong in suggesting that I wish to bring up the North versus South Island issue,” says Mr Dickie, “but since he has mentioned it he can digest these facts: The season before last the Meat Board brought 32,000 lambs from South Island works and none from the North Island. The board professed itself anxious to assist in developing the boneless beef trade with Genoa and assured me that tonnage would be available. After two sailings had been cancelled I was given three hours to decide if my company would guarantee full freight' to Genoa or pay onesixteentii extra on an equivalent amount of London cargo. In other words, to guarantee a ship for the rest of New Zealand, which the Patea company did. I would ask Mr Trotter to ponder the question of how many more of these expensive boards the producer can carry before his back be broken.”