FRANCE AND FROZEN MEAT

Nelson Evening Mail, 25 May 1916, Page 2

FRANCE AND FROZEN MEAT

A WIN FOR NEW ZEALAND. LONDON, April 6. Sir Thomas Mackenzie informs me that the Bill presented to the French Parliament authorising the purchase, by the Minister of War, of 120,000 tons-of meat per" annum: for the period of the war, and three months after its termination,and. of 15,000 tons per annum, from then until the end of 192® lor Army requirements —such purchases to t>e confined to America- and [French colonial colonies—and providing that firms witli whom contracts would be made were to be entitled to import- meat into France oil their own account up to the end 1 of 1919,' free of duty and charges, has been finally dropped a;fter being reported on adversely by two commissions. Last July the High Comiilissioner and Sir Thomas Robinson made representations to the Imperial Government as. to the impropriety' df a measure of the kind becomiiig law, holding that it would be distinctly in favour of a neutral (Power as against the British, and its : results would certainly be seriously felt by the people of New Zealand and Australia, wjio were helping the Allies. It was pointed out that the 'British. Government had been assisted with the aid of the colonies in the supply of meat to the. French, and also to the Belgians. The Imperial Government endorsed this view, and at once took the matter ur>. Various modifications were proposed, 'but the ultimate •' result is as indicated —tho measure has been dropped.