RESTRICTION ON MEAT EXPORTS

Southland Times, Issue 23827, 26 May 1939, Page 5

RESTRICTION ON MEAT EXPORTS

To The Editor

Sir, —I regret that in my very hurried interview with your reporter yesterday, I conveyed a wrong impression about the restrictions placed on New Zealand meat.

I in no way intended to blame that excellent body, the New Zealand Meat Producers’ Board, which has done so much both here and in England for the produce of Zealand. The board, as was only right, restricted ewe mutton, which would affect the New Zealand farmer least. This, Britain’s Minister of Agriculture could have foreseen. As I said, the ewe mdtton is the poor man’s meat at home, and he will now have to pay more for it. At the same time the restriction of ewe mutton will have very little effect on the English mutton and lamb trade, for which the restrictions were put on. What would assist the English farmer would be restrictions on heavy lambs and lightweight wethers, for he can and does produce a quantity of these; also this meat is bought by a class of people who could well afford to pay the English price. Therefore I lay no blame on the New Zealand Meat Board, but on the British Minister of Agriculture for not foreseeing the board’s very rightful actions. —Yours, etc., J. KEITH KILLBY. May 24, 1939.