BRITISH PRODUCTS

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXXIII, Issue 22389, 8 April 1936, Page 16

BRITISH PRODUCTS

"LOT OF SECOND GKADE" BOARD MEMBER'S ASSERTION ADVERSE MOTION DEFEATED [BY TELEGRAPH —OWN CORRESPONDENT] TE AROHA, Tuesday "Quite a lot of the British products coming into this country are second grade goods, and I think, as board members, we should spend tne ratepayers' money in the same way wo spend our own," said Mr. W. J. Major at a meeting of the Thames Valley Power Board to-day. Mr. Major moved the rescinding of a resolution that, in its purchases, the board shoidd give preference to British goods. "I say emphatically that the Old Country is not giving us value," continued Mr. Major. Ho contended that local bodies whose purchases were governed by preference resolutions were in grave danger of being exploited by English manufacturers. At this point a discission arose whether the preference clause rendered it mandatory for the board to purchase none other than British goods. Upon the chairman, Mr. J. J. Price, ruling that it was mandatory, several members disagreed, one suggesting that a professor of English shoidd define the exact meaning of the term "give preference to."

After considerable discussion the motion to rescind the resolution was lost by § votes to 2. In the meantime the board's power to purchase foreign goods, in view of its retention of the British preference clause, is to be submitted to some competent authority for definition.