"NOTHING TO RETRACT"

Otago Daily Times, Issue 23691, 24 December 1938, Page 12

"NOTHING TO RETRACT"

TUNG OIL CONTROVERSY THE MINISTER'S ATTITUDE EXCHANGE OF TELEGRAMS (Special to Daily Times) AUCKLAND, Dec. 23. Because no reply to the two previous telegrams had been received, the managing director of the New Zealand Tung Oil Corporation, Ltd., Mr J. E. Ray, sent a further telegram to the Minister of Agriculture (Mr W. Lee Martin) to-day. The telegram was as follows: — " I am extremely disappointed at your failure to reply to my telegrams of December 21 and 22. " Irreparable damage is being done to our companies by your silence. Surely primary producers and genuine enterprises may expect from your department sympathetic treatment and assistance rather than opposition. Only by an immediate reply can you mitigate the damage resulting from the inaccurate statement in the Journal of Agriculture." A telegram stating that he had nothing to retract or to modify in the statement concerning tung oil published by the December issue of the Journal of Agriculture was received from Mr Lee Martin later by Mr Ray. The telegram was as follows: " Your telegram received. I have nothing to retract or to modify in connection with the statement in the Journal of Agriculture concerning tung oil, which was published with my full concurrence. While recognising your duty to the shareholders, I also have a duty to the investing public and I am sure that they, together with myself, will welcome a full and complete statement of all the facts by your company." Mr Ray sent the following telegram to the Minister in reply:— "We have your memorandum, but we still await your reply supplying the date of your visit as well as that of the departmental officers." " The Minister says he is protecting the investing public," said Mr Ray later. "It is difficult to see how he is doing this as we have not been for the past 18 months selling to the investing public. As it is not our intention to do any further selling until the groves are in production, there seems to be no need for any such precipitate action. His department has failed to inform the companies of any proposed action or to give them an opportunity of commenting upon the report before publication. Common fairness would have demanded this. No possible harm to the Government or to any citizen of the country could have resulted from such a course. On the contrary, the precipitate publication of such a report might conceivably harm many investors."