£3,000,000 INVOLVED.

Mt Benger Mail, 21 March 1934, Page 2

£3,000,000 INVOLVED.

THE BUTTERFAT SUBSIDY. PROPOSAL GOVERNMENT S QUOTA ATTITUDE. Wellington. March 15. Authoritative estimates of t!u amount involved in the Dairy Conference request to the Gov eminent of a 2d a lb subsidy ot advance on the whole of the bid-tor-fat production place the figure at three millions sterling. The Prime Minister spent a busy day receiving reports from the committees appointed by the conference to amplify and support its resolutions. interviewed afterwards. Mr Forbes was asked if he could indicate the Government’s view on the subsidy. “It is one of similar requests which have been made on various occasion," he replied, "and my reply to the dairy representatives has been that the Government cannot give an indication of what it can do to provide the finance involved. It will have to be very carefully considered by Cabinet.” Disposing of the quota possibility does not dispose of the dairy industry output problem, suggested the interviewer.

Mr Forbes agreed. ‘The position now is that a move must comfrom the dairy producers of the dominion, the Home Government having made its own arrangement for its producers for the next two years. This is made clear in today’s cables from London.” The Prime Minister expressed the opinion that the conference was well worth while, enabling a survey of the position and giving a clear indication of the attitude of the Imperial Government in its request for the co-operation of New Zealand in the regulation of the market. “The New Zealand Government,” he added, “has been charged on various occasions with trying to do something behind the back uf the dairy industry, the suggestion being that it give some promise that it would bring our producers into some regulative system; but it was made quit' clear to the conference that right through our attitude has been the one which the Dairy Board, speaking for the industry, had definitely decided upon. We have strictly adhered to that attitude right through, and wc feel that the Government’s position has been justified to everyone attending the conference.”

No decisions regarding Government action on the conference resolutions can be available until Cabinet has considered them. The question of sending a New Zealand dairymen's delegation to England is to be discussed wi

the Dairy Board when it indicates it is in a position to submit proposals.