DOMINION PRODUCERS

Taranaki Daily News, 19 July 1933, Page 12

DOMINION PRODUCERS

EFFECT OF RESTRICTIONS. BIG SETBACK FEARED. “I am afraid the position.of the pro-' ducers in New Zealand is not n “ er ' stood clearly by Major Elliot, British Minister of Agriculture,” said Mr. Dynes Fulton, acting-chairman of the New_ Zealand Dairy Produce Board, when interviewed yesterday with regard to the further suggestion that New Zealand should submit to restrictions on exports of butter to Britain. Mr. Fulton added that if restrictions on New Zealand exports were instituted the country would receive a set-back from which it would take years to recover. Mr. Fulton referred to the present unemployment problem, the difficulty of finding work for boys except on farms, and the dependence of the country on its primary products for the payment of its national debts. He said he hoped the New Zealand Government would be strong enough immediately to inform the British Ministry that. New Zealand would put- itself on one side by drastically reducing tariffs and thus enable British goods to successfully compete on the New Zealand market. He was still convinced that if New Zealand “played the game” with Britain it would have nothing to fear so far as restrictions were concerned. Meetings of dairy farmers in Carterton and‘ Hastings were addressed last week by Mr. Fulton. He said those present expressed a keen desire that the Daily Produce Board should at once evolve some better scheme of marketing New Zealand produce than was at present in existence. The meetings also wholeheartedly supported the recent decision of the board to embark on an active advertising campaign in Britain. HALT IN PRODUCTION. USES FOR BUTTER-FAT. I Hamilton, July 16. Condemnation of the policy of increasing production and expanding land settlement was expressed by Mr. E. Runnerstrum, governing director of the Waikato Valley Dairy Company, Limited, Frankton, who said that while he fervently trusted that nothing would come of the present agitation, he felt that the question of quotas must be faced. Mr. Runnerstrum said he was investigating the question whether butter-fat could be utilised for other purposes than for consumption. He thought it was possible that it could be used for lubricants, for ■ instance. He considered a halt should be called in production, and the position examined before any further expansion took place. His advice to dairy farmers was to “go slow” and if they could use their land for any other purpose than for the production of but-ter-fat they should do so.