EXPORTABLE MUTTON

Wairarapa Times-Age, 13 August 1941, Page 3

EXPORTABLE MUTTON

GOVERNMENT POLICY “RED HERRING” CHARGE. REPLY TO MINISTER. (By Telegraph—Press Association.) DUNEDIN, August 12. A reply was made today by Mr D. H. Cockburn, president of the Otago Provincial Council of the Farmers' Union, to a statement made yesterday by the Minister of Marketing, Mi’ Barclay, on the subject of the purchase ci meat by the Government. Mr Barclay. he said, “would appear to be master of the art of twisting words to suit himself.

"When Mr Barclay made his original promise to pay for exportable quality sheep fattened," Mr Cockburn said, “he did not mention the word ‘normal.’ As has been pointed out right throughout the Dominion by Mr Mulholland and other prominent leaders in the primary industry, this is a somewhat shrewd afterthought on Mr Barclay's part. He now seeks to draw a red herring across the trail by asking if Otago farmers want a referendum upon (presumably) the guaranteed price for meat. This is beside the point and has not come up for discussion.

“What did come up for discussion," Mr Cockburn said, “was the value or otherwise of the Government’s future promises in respect to the purchase of and payment for meat. Having been ‘once bitten,’ the Otago farmers asked the Farmers’ Union to take up the matter and my council is of opinion that we should get future Government promises of this nature in writing. “With regard to quantities killed, the Minister’s figures are misleading," Mr Cockburn said. “My information is to the effect that fewer wethers and ewes were killed in Otago and Southland during the season 1940-41 than during 1939-40, the surplus being in lamb, which were not shut out from works. It would appear from the above that the Minister’s arguments are based on unsound premises.” Mr Barclay had not yet indicated whether compensation in any shape or form would be paid to the High-coun-try runholder who had nothing but his annual draft of wethers as a surplus to freeze and who, through the Government’s action in March last, had, in many cases, been left with the whole of his season’s surplus sheep on his hands.

“May I mention in conclusion,” Mr Cockburn added, “that this position applies not only to Otago and Southland but also to other parts of the Dominion as well, notably Poverty Bay.”