“ROBBING THE POOR”

Otago Daily Times, Issue 27166, 23 August 1949, Page 4

“ROBBING THE POOR”

Proposal To Lift Butter Rationing ‘

ATTACK BY MR F. P. WALSH

PA WELLINGTON, Aug. 22. “It is incredible that two men prominent in public life can have the effrontery to advocate publicly the transfer of some 14,000 tons of butter within New Zealand from the children and the needy into the hands of the wealthy.” This was stated to-day by the chairman of the Aid for Britain National Council, Mr F, P. Walsh, commenting on the suggestion by the New Zealand Dairy Conference that buttei rationing be abolished and the Government subsidy be withdrawn. The conference, said Mr Walsh, had been stampeded into passing the remit which it would seem had been fostered by the chairman of the Dairy Board, Mr W. E. Hale, ancl the vice-chairman, Mr A. Linton.

The. essence of the argument advanced by Mr Hale and Mr Linton, said Mr Walsh, was that because of alleged rationing abuses it would be better to lift rationing and allow the price to go up. The price, it was claimed, would ration sales, and Mr Hale firmly believed that there would not be less butter for export, said Mr Walsh. Mr Walsh said that at 2s Cd a pound (the price he. said was quoted by Mp Linton), big families would ration butter, as would pensioners and others, and it' might be true that New Zealand could still send as much to Britain. “But I don’t think the British would accept it," said Mr Walsh, adding that they would be the nrst to react to the “ rank injustice of Mr Linton’s scheme, for keeping up their butter ration by taxing it from the poor and needy and transferring it to the rich and greedy.” “The present rationing policy is criticised as conflicting with this country's long-term interests,” said ' Mr Walsh. “ Let us take a look at the proposed policy of ‘ no rationing and no subsidy.' Britain is at present paying a subsidy of Is 3d a pound to enable her to retail our butter at Is 6d a pound. If this subsidy, too, were removed —and why not, if Mr Linton’s analysis is true?—our' butter would cost the British consumer 2s 9d a pound. Even at Is 6a certain poorer areas have already found their allocation of butter uniifted in the face of competition from margarine at 9d. At 2s 9d our butter would be relatively unsaleable in large areas of Britain. ' ... “It is time that our dairy industry leaders discovered that the world has

developed a low-cost butter substitute, and that a generation of consumers in Britain and other lands has. because. of war shortages, been eating cheap margarine, and liking it, and. furthermore, doing well on it. In the United States, and in Canada, too, consumer resistance has brought butter prices down rapidly all this year, and their Governments have for some time been buying heavily at support prices to prevent the farmer from being badly left with unsaleable butter on his hands. "Obviously, Messrs Hale and Linton have badly misjudged our Dominion’s long-term interests,” Mr Walsh continued. “If their new policy of allowing butter prices to find their ‘ proper ’ level were followed to-day—overseas as well as here—these two gentlemen and their wealthy friends would quickly find they had enough butter and to spare in this country. They could wallow in it or feed it to their pigs. The only thing they could not do with it would be to sell it.” It was to be hoped that the more sober-minded farmers in less exalted positions would see just how far that policy would lead them, concluded Mr Walsh. He was more hopeful of that when he read the .comment of one delegate to the dairy conference, that “ rationing was difficult to adrpinister, but that was no reason why New Zealand should fall down on its major responsibility to supply Britain to the maximum.” The Dominion’s longterm and short-term interests lay with Britain, and with 97 per cent, of their exports going to that one market, dairy producers should be the very last to forget that, said Mr Walsh.