POLITICAL TOPICS.

Thames Star, Volume LVII, Issue 15112, 22 December 1921, Page 5

POLITICAL TOPICS.

THE MEAT. POOL. MR. MASSEY'S SCHEME. (Special -Correspondent.) WELLINGTON, December: 19. The meat pool,--which Mr Massey mentioned in the House or* Representatives on Friday, an<J promised to explain early this week, is suspected of having been inspired by the scheme of co-operative shipping and marketing with which Mr W. J. Poison has been tickling the ears of the farmers during the last. few months. The Dominion president of the Farmers' Union is not favourably disposed to-, wards State interference in any form, except, perhaps, in the shape' of a subsidy to a fanners' shipping, line, and his scheme has not contemplated any active "intervention on the part of the Government. Mr Massey, who, years ago, took the same view of such matters as Mr Poison does now, has ; come to realise by travel and observation that State interference within certain bounds need not be/ the abomination he imagined it to be in the days of his political youth. Mr JPolson's scheme provided for the purchase of ships, the erection of stores, the organisation of an expert staff, and for many other things that would have cost a large sum of money and occupied much time. THE STATE'S WAY. . . v

At the* present time it would .be quite impossible for the finance such a scheme, even with generous assistance from the Government, and no scheme that did not bring them immediate relief .would be of much praotieal value. Mr Massey's scljem'e, as it has been foreshadowed," provides for ihe Government taking' charge of the meat at the freezing works, and seeing it through all its succeeding stage's.till it reached the distributors in the overseas markets, The meat being graded at the works, in preparation for its being sold according to '. its grade would save the cost and delay and damage of sorting and repeated handlings, and the Government's arrangements for railing, shipping, and marketing might be expected to effect further economies". On these points local business men, closely associated with the meat trade, are not particu larly sanguine of State control working out as satisfactorily as predict it will; but the producers are in such a sorry plight just now that public opinion inclines to the. view that any attempted remedy would be better than callous inaction.

THAT FARMERS' DEPUTATION. The executive of the Shipowners' and Farmers' Federation appears to have suffered the -fate popularly known as jumping out of the frying pan into the fire, in its hasty attempt to dissociate itself from something it imagined had been said by the big farmers'- deputation which wa'te'd upon Mr Massey a month or two ago. First of all, it wrote to the Prime Minister, roundly disapproving' of the statements made by the spokesmen of the deputation. Badly bowled out in this effort to relieve itself of responsibility; it declared its hearty concurrence with all Mr W. D. Hunt, the principal spokesman, had said, •but hinted at some indiscretion on the part of other speakers. Now, Mr W. J. Poison has entered the list, and shown that what Tie other minor speakers said was merely in support of Mr Hunt's ease. v And so the Federation finds itself with all its excuses expended, and its position less dignified than ever.