MEAT LEVY OPPOSED

Taranaki Daily News, 13 April 1935, Page 7

MEAT LEVY OPPOSED

PRODUCERS PREFER QUOTAS. REGULATION’S GOOD RESULTS. By Telegraph—Press Association. Christchurch, Last Night. New Zealand owned freezing companies operating in the South Island have sent the following telegram to the Rt. Hon. J. G. Coates:— “At a meeting held yesterday of the undersigned companies, representative of all New Zealand-owned freezing companies in the South Island, the following resolution was unanimously adopted for transmission to yourself: That this meeting of New Zealand-owned freezing companies representing thousands of shareholders and producers strongly urges upon the Government the importance of resisting any attempt to introduce the application of a levy on New Zealand meet imported into the United Kingdom. “We are convinced that the regulation of imports as agreed at the Ottawa conference has been of the utmost value to New Zealand producers in protecting them against the unlimited expansion of exports from other competing companies and the disastrous fall in prices which would have ' resulted. The improved prices which have ruled for mutton and lamb since restrictions were imposed under the Ottawa agreement are the best evidence of the benefit which has accrued to New Zealand. “We are convinced that "the abandonment of the regulation of imports in favour of a levy will result in the English market being flooded with supplies, in other words becoming the dumping ground for the world’s exportable surplus, with a resulting collapse in prices, the effect of which would be intensified by the introduction of a levy for the reaeon that in the long rui} the cost of the levy would fall upon the producers.”