Empire Producers’ Council

Northern Advocate, 26 May 1938, Page 13

Empire Producers’ Council

l Per ,Press Association. Copyright. I

WELLINGTON. ..This Day

A review of the resolutions passed at the Empire Producers’ Conference at Sydney was given by the Dominion President of the New Zealand Farmers’ Union, Mr W. W. Mulholland, at the annual inter-provincial conference of the union. The Ottawa Order. ‘‘The first of the senes deals with what is known as the Ottawa order of preference,” said Mr Mulholland. “The second resolution accepts the need, for securing an expansion of Dominion supplies of primary products to the United Kingdom market as far as is economically possible. The question as to whether a larger share of the British market can be given to a Dominion at the expense of the foreign producer involves two economic considerations. Firstly, the Dominion’s willingness to take British goods in exchange; secondly, the Dominion’s ability .to replace the export trade lost by Britain by her limitation of foreign exports. . ■' l: * “The third, fourth and fifth resolutions aim at the orderly marketing of Empire primary products in order to maintain a continuity of supplies, and to prevent avoidable, gluts and the resultant instability of price levels and speculations. “The sixth resolution aims at finding new markets for Empire producers by .using the economic strength of the Empire as a whole. , Mr, Goodfellow Criticises. “Mr. W. G. Goodfellow and those associated with, him, who are trying to discredit the conference’s findings, refer rather scornfully to this resoution, while actually the commercial organisation with whose control Mr. Goodfellow is closely associated is exploring markets for dairy produce particularly in the east, which is is supplying' from Australia to the exclusion of New Zealand. Mr. Goodfellow has suggested all sorts of evil in the attempt to coordinate the regulation of supplies to the British market to avoid larger rivals at inconvenient times, but his organisation was established for accomplishing that purpose in Australia, .South Africa tind New Zealand. The Essential Question. ’’The question seems to be not whether it is desirable that such coordination of supplies should take place,” said Mr. Mulholland. but whether the dairy industry of New

Zealand is willing to hand to a com-

mercial organisation the job of doing it, or to do it through its own elected representatives of the Dairy Board. “The Empire Producers Conference did not agree to any restrictions on cur experts to Great Britain. It did not, agree to establish any body which would come between the Dominion and United Kingdom Government to negotiate in regard to trade.”