ROYAL COMMISSIONS

Southland Times, Issue 19461, 28 January 1925, Page 7

ROYAL COMMISSIONS

PERSONNEL ANNOUNCED. CHARGES AGAINST GOVERNMENT. VESTEY BROS. AND HIDE EMBARGO. (Special to the Times.) WELLINGTON, January 27. It is announced that Mr John Alexander, barrister, of Auckland, Mr Gerald Fitzgerald, civil engineer, of Wellington, and Mr Alex. Macintosh, of Wellington, at one time general manager of the Bank of New Zealand, have been appointed a Royal Commission to inquire into the charges made against the Government and the Minister of Agriculture in regard to the sale of the Poverty Bay Meat Works to Vestey Brothers, and the complaint of the Woolston Tanneries Coy., of inequitable treatment by the Government through the placing of the embargo on hides. Mr Alexander will be Chairman of the Commission. POVERTY BAY MEAT WORKS. The charges in regard to the sale of the Poverty Bay Meat Works were made in the House of Representatives in the third reading of the Meat Export Control Bill, by Mr W. D. Lysnar, the member for Gisborne. Mr Lysnar attacked the Government for having failed to oust trusts and combines, as he said it had been returned to office pledged to do. It had promised that action would be taken against trusts, but the promisee had not materialised. Apparently, he said, it was foreign to the policy of the Government. Other allegations were made by the member for Gisborne, and others, notably Mr G. W. Forbes (Hurunui), on the Bill. The Minister of Agriculture, whom Mr Lysnar particularly blamed for the alleged inaction of the Government in regard to the sale of the meat works, undertook that a Commission would be set up to investigate the whole matter, and he said he had no fears of the result so far as his actions and the actions of the Government were, concerned. The Prime Minister supported the Commission proposal, and said he wanted to see the whole thing thrashed out right down to the bottom. “If there is anyone to blame,” he said, “let us know who it is, and let him take the consequences. If it is the Government we will take the consequences, and if it is the Minister of Agriculture, he will take the consequences. We cannot have these things thrown at us. I have been attacked to-night by the member for Gisborne and one or two other members. Let me say, as far as 1 am concerned, that when I go out I will go out with clean hands and a good record. Not a member here, or anywhere in New Zealand, can point a finger of scorn at any action of mine. I have done my level best for the country.” FIXPORT OF HIDES. The inquiry into the Woolston Tanneries Company case arises out of a petition presented to the House, praying for the setting up of an independent Committee for the purpose of inquiring into the question of monetary adjustments alleged to be due by the Government to the company in respect to the embargo on hides. The Public Petitions Committee recommended that the whole matter should be referred to a Supreme Court Judge, but when this proposal was put to the Chief Justice and his colleagues of the Bench by the At-torney-General some days ago, they asked that they should not be required to intervene in disputes of a political nature. The company’s claim is that the Government has been guilty of unnecessarily harsh acts in the administration of the War Regulations relating to the company, and that these harsh acts have caused the company great loss. The Commission’s Order of Reference is not yet available.