FRUITGROWERS AND CO-OPERATION.

Colonist, Volume LVII, Issue 14143, 21 July 1916, Page 7

FRUITGROWERS AND CO-OPERA-TION.

(To the Editor of "The Colonist.")

Sir, —Under the above heading Mr D. Haining has. a letter in your issue of the 20th in which it would appear that I- have made certain mis-statements. Now, Mi* Hainin<r was present at my meeting at tiie Lower Mouterc on Monday last, and I suggest ifc would have been more to the point, arid certainly in,'better spirit, if he had asked the questions at the meeting, as invited, and I would have been able to answer them at once. All this business goes to prove that tho more we write and talk the' further we seem to get away from tho point. lam certain the only way to arrive at any definite conclusion is for a round-table discussion with all parties. I do not intend to take part in any newspaper controversy, but I Avill endearour to correct Mr Haining in som© of his statements;. Tho night prior to the meeting of directors in Wellington I met Mr A. P. Allport 'and gave him the copy of the minutes of the meeting at tho Upper Moutere and. the prospectus of the proposed new company. Later in the same evening I met Mr Allport- with Mr Anderson, the company's solicitor, whom I mistook for a director. Mr Anderson was openly hostile to the scheme, and, 1 repeat, I had great difficulty in getting permission from Mr Allport (as chairman) to bo present at the meeting, owing, as T i have said, to Mr Anderson's attitude. On the following morning I was at the where the meeting was being held 'at 10.15 a.m., and was called in by Mr J. T. Horn at 10.35. The -chairman *Mr A. P. Allport) said they had to be at the Town Hall at 11 a.m., and that therefore they could only give me a few minutes. Yet I was there, as the official representative of the most representative gathering of fruitgrowers that has possibly met for any one purpose! Mr Haining is quite correct in bis statements as to the reason why the company .would not entertain the proposal, but when I found out that position I asked whether, seeing their company's name and articles of association were wide enough to embrace the whole district, they would give me a message to take back to the meeting I represented, .stating that their company could be the provincial one. The chairman's reply was that he. regretted they could not do as T. suggested. Now, with regard to the Nelson-Stoke Company, the position is this. Despite certain withdrawals, a gentleman in this city offered to underwrite the shares necessary to float it, but after the meeting at the Upper Moutere, and after listening to the views of Tasman's representatives, as well as the others, our directors present came away with I the impressions - that the provincial scheme was a certainty. So much so that the matter of the Nelson-Stoke Company was dropped, and all our interests centred in the provincial scheme. This is what I told the meeting in Wellington, but added, "Now that you cannot see your way to do as the combined meeting suggested, we shall have to lapse, as the days of grace expire tomorrow, and it is impossible for me to be home and fix matters by then." I repeat, that the more we talk the further we get away from the professed object we .ill. have in view, amalgamation, and I am going to put my theories into practice by refraining from referring to the subject again. I am, etc.,

H. G. HILL