MEAT CONTROL.

Waipa Post, Volume XXIV, Issue 1427, 15 November 1923, Page 4

MEAT CONTROL.

STATE FINANCE CLAUSE

(By Telegraph. Press Association.) WELLINGTON, Wednesday.

Some hitherto unpublished information regarding the State finance clause of the Meat Export Control Act is revealed in a letter to a section of the press yesterday by Mr A. D. McLeod, M. P. He says: "Mr Massey, the Minister in charge, and the committee acting with them were all against the principle, but When suggestions were put forward, amounting to threats, that finance would not be found for the scheme unless the compulsory clauses were dropped, we had no other alternative, as we knew from past experience that such would render the legislation futile. Personally, I know the clause to be an objectionable one, and I beljeve I am voicing the opinion of all members of the Board when I say that the clause could now be struck out with safety. As in the days of the Bank of New Zealand smash, desperate conditions required desperate remedies. In the dark days of 1921 the position of us meat and wool men was desperate to the point only those intimately in touch with the position knew. Our wool position was saved—notwithstanding the opposition yells of the British press—by the almost watertight conditions attached to the B.A.W.R.A. control, to which brokers gave loyal adherence. How much the meat control helped the position no man can say, but, for good or ill, we have set our hands to the plough, and there is going to be no turning back." |