BEEF QUOTA EFFECT

Taranaki Daily News, 16 October 1934, Page 12

BEEF QUOTA EFFECT

ALLEGATIONS OF UNFAIRNESS. DENIAL FROM THE MINISTER. Auckland, Oct. 14. An assurance that the New Zealand Meat Producers’ Board realised its responsibilities to the dairy industry as the result of restrictions placed on the export of bobby calves and boner cattle is given in a letter received from the Minister of Finance, the Rt. Hon. J. G. Coates, by Mr. Mervyn Wells, Cambridge. Statements that dairying interests had been sacrificed by the Meat Board during the quota discussions with Great Britain. caused Mr. Wells to communicate with Mr. Coates, seeking a reason for the delay in adjusting the claims of the dairy industry. Mr. Wells suggested that compensation for loss of value should be paid at the rate of 2s a head for bobby calves and 10s for boner cattle, the payments to continue while the restriction lasted.

In his reply, Mr. Coates said the question of compensation had been discussed between the Meat Producers’ Board and the Dairy Produce Board, and it was at the instigation of the Government that this was done. There was no doubt that the proper and only effective course was to leave the matter to the two boards to deal with at this stage, and the Government’s request was that they should endeavour to arrive at some proposition to meet the position. "I know from conversation with members of the Meat Board that they are, and all along have been, willing and anxious to make any reasonable arrngements, whether on the lines of compensation or otherwise,” said Mr. Coates. “There certainly is no basis for the allegations to the effect that the dairy farmers’ interests have been unfairly treated. I have no hesitation in saying that, if all the details could be made known, any reasonable man would be satisfied, but for reasons over which we have no control it is not possible to publish the details.”