leaf Board’s Base For Higher Prices

Northern Advocate, 29 August 1947, Page 5

leaf Board’s Base For Higher Prices

(P.A.)

WELLINGTON, This Day

No payments can be made out of the £11,000,000 in the Meat Pool Account or the £7,000,000 in the Meat Industry Stabilisation Account without the agreement of the New Zealand Meat Producers’ Board, stated the chairman (Mr G. H. Grigg) at the annual meeting of the board today. The figures were the estimated amounts that would be in these accounts at the end of the current season.

Mr Grigg intimated also that with the withdrawal of subsidies chargeable to the Stabilisation Account, the prices of products or services affected are to be increased.

The increase to the farmer will be reflected in the new season’s fat stock schedule prices. The board’s case for an increased schedule of prices is to be presented to the Stabilisation Commission within the next few days and it is hoped to make an early announcement about the prices.

Regarding aid to Britain, Mr Grigg said that what Britain had to cut in the way of imported foodstuffs, New Zealand must do its utmost to replace, if not by an identical article then by whatever foodstuffs that could be supplied. Real and practical- assistance must come from the farmers as New Zealand could only help to a limited degree financially. CLOSER UNDERSTANDING

“If the farmer does his part, and I feel sure he will, then every worker in the production chain from farm to ship must also do his part,” he said.

“I have looked forward to the time when there would be closer cooperation and understanding between employer and employee, to the time when each learned to appreciate the difficulties of the other, and, what is vitally important, to the time when each really understood just how dependent each is upon the other.

“The time has come for that cooperation.

“If the spirit of understanding which permeated the conference convened by the Prime Minister to consider ways and means of giving aid to the United Kingdom is carried into actual practice, then I feel we shall have gone a long way towards bridging the gap between employer and employee, and also towards giving practical aid to the United Kingdom.”