MEAT EXPORT

Southland Times, Issue 22499, 8 December 1934, Page 8

MEAT EXPORT

HOME MARKET LIMIT ON TONNAGE BASIS EARLY ANNOUNCEMENT (Per United Press Association.) Christchurch, December 7. The announcement of some sort of restriction on the meat export of New Zealand during the next three months is expected within a few days by the Meat Producers’ Board. Speaking at a gathering of farmers at Belfast to-day, Mr H. D. Ackland, a member of the Meat Board, said that negotiations had been passing between London and New Zealand for the past five weeks and the Prime Minister would make an announcement in a day or so. Mr Ackiand said it was clear that New Zealand was going to be limited on a tonnage basis and the only way to deal with that was to attend to quality, and not quantity, and therefore the only policy for New Zealand was to see that only the best possible quality was sent to England. It might be that inferior grades of meat would have to be restricted. The chairman of the board, Mr D. Jones, was in England and was putting up a good fight on behalf of the New Zealand producer. The British Government, two years ago, concluded an agreement with the Argentine under which no restriction was to be placed on Argentine meat without a similar restriction on the dominions. That agreement still had 18 months to run.

The Meat Board, he said, had been criticized for having allowed quotas to be dis.cussed, but the board was forced into it. Britain said there had to be quotas and what Britain said had to be obeyed. If meat was to be limited on a tonnage basis, New Zealand would have to concentrate on the meat that paid best, lamb first and then perhaps pork. There would then be the problem of what would be done with the boner cow, bobby veal and the old ewe. The board had investigated the foreign market over which it had received so much criticism, but most countries prohibited the import of meat altogether. America had imposed high duties, but there was the hope that because of the drought America might again import meat. Britain was the consumer of 95 per cent, of New Zealand’s meat, and the British were the people New Zealand would have to study.