MR GOODFELLOW’S ERROR

Southland Times, Issue 22295, 10 April 1934, Page 4

MR GOODFELLOW’S ERROR

It is not difficult to understand the tartness of Mr Forbes’s reply to Mr W. Goodfellow’s statement embodying a programme for the New Zealand dairying industry. In presenting this programme the main planks of which most men on the land will regard as sound, Mr Goodfellow went out of his way to criticize the Government, and to convey the impression that it was and still is the victim of panic. Nir Goodfellow s presentation of what he regards as the sequence of events leading to the decision to send a delegation to the Old Country, is not fair to the Government, and the Prime Minister draws attention to the fact that the decision to send such a delegation was not made at the dictation of the Government, but was a proposal originating in the conference called to allow the dairy industry to present concrete proposals. The statement that the “quota talk” was more or less supported by “local manufacturers mainly in the South Island in the hope that the restricted exports of dairy produce would cancel out the Ottawa Agreement” is rather absurd, especially as the quota proposals were very definite and were freely discussed in the Old Country until recently. Also it was made clear by Mr Coates that the two things had no connection, and it seems that the interrogation sent Home put the doubts about the accuracy of Mr Coates’s opinion at rest. The South Island has been interested in the quota talk because when Mr Baxter came to New Zealand he made it clear that his idea was to apply the quota principally to cheese —Mr Goodfellow, it will be noticed, talks chiefly of butter. In the programme he has presented there is much of value to the industry, but the Prime Minister is right in saying that these proposals could have been given to the public without the preliminary sneers at members of the Government, simply because . their views do not happen to coincide with all the opinions Mr Goodfellow at present holds. The discussion of Mr Goodfellow s programme cannot be helped by this method of debate, especially when it gives the Government such excellent opportunities to refute his statements and so avoid any debate on the main issues.