Reject Remit To Lift Butter Ration

Northern Advocate, 25 May 1949, Page 2

Reject Remit To Lift Butter Ration

WELLINGTON Wed (Sp.).—A move to recommend to the Government that the butter ration should be increased from 6oz. to Boz. per week was defeated by a large majority at the anual conference of the Labour Party tonight. The Minister of Supply (Mr Nordmeyer) gave an assurance that 'as soon as it was possible to make a concession the Government would do so. The conference rejected a remit that" butter rationing should be abolished.

The spokesman said that Mr J. S. Berry, Amalgamated Society of Railway Servants, had moved an amendment that the ration be increased to Boz. a week.

Mr Nordmeyer said that the Government realised that the maintenance of the ration at 6oz. could result in a real hardship, particularly where lunches had to be cut. BRITISH VIEWS

New Zealand had asked the British Government for its views on a proposal to increase the ration to Boz. The reply had been that if New Zealand took this course Australia was almost certain to follow. This would make the position in Britain even more serious.

The Government was to make an 'improvement but it believed that rationing must be retained. Mr Nordmeyer intimated that if the ration was increased by 2oz a week, New Zealand would consume 5200 tons of butter a year in excess of the allowable quantity of 3 per cent of total exports which it could send to countries other that Britain.