QUOTA PROPOSALS

Waikato Times, Volume 114, Issue 19010, 29 July 1933, Page 5

QUOTA PROPOSALS

BRITAIN WEAKENING.

PRESS CHAMPIONSHIP.

DOMINION’S PLIGHT ADMITTED.

RESTRICTION ON CHEESE ONLY,

Tho fight put up by Messrs Forbes and Masters In London on behalf of the Dominion’s producers apparently Is bearing fruit. Influential newspapers are championing the cause of the Dominions and it Is reported that the Government Is weakening in Its request for a quota on butter. Major Elliot will confer with the delegations regarding restriction i on cheese only. (Special to United Press Association, New Zealand.) (Received July 29, 9.25 a.m.) LONDON, July 28. The Dominions' delegates are still being' called into daily consultation with British Ministers on various Empire subjects. Messrs Forbes and Masters spent the morning with the British Cabinet. Britain has not yet relinquished her endeavour to secure an agreement with the Dominions for the limitation of supplies of dairy produce, though in view of the fight New Zealand and Australia have put up and the arguments and data advanced regarding the ffects of the regulation ot. production would have upon these young countries there is a less bitter viewpoint in the press against them. The Northcliffe and Beaverbrook papers now support the Dominions in the latters’ anxiety not to ha.ve their out-put and development disadvanaffected, and in this respect there is little doubt that Mr ForbeV statement in his first speech in London, and'which has since been reiterated by himself and Mr Masters, that any curtailment of revenue ' from ex-i ports might have a repercussion seriously threatening, the solvency of the Dominion, has had its influence in securing a better hearing for the Dominions. s . No Empire Defaulters. To-day the Standard points out that British dealers In foreign bonds admit that the governments that should be •supported by London loans are confined to the British Dominions, not one of whom has defaulted, while outside them there has been widespread default, especially by South America. The fight by Messrs Forbes and Masters regarding quotas is not yet concluded, but the outlook is more favourable. The chief press hostility is from the Midlands and the Scottish and south-western parts of Great Britain, where agriculturists are most strongly grouped. The failure of the conference to arrive at. any international unanimous conclusion regarding the raising of the price levels of produce appears to have directed attention once again to the possibilities of concerted action within the Empire. It Is now rumoured that the United Kingdom Is weakening on the quota for butter* and that Major Elliot, (the British MlnlsIster for Agriculture), has asked for a private conference to-mor-row with the New Zealand delegates to discuss a quota on cheese only. * At a meeting of farmers at Taunton tl\ere was a general demand for a revision of the Ottawa agreement, farmers alleging that they cannot live, against the Dominions’ competition in chGGse. Major Elliot has reaffairmed his opinion that concessions in tariffs on British goods into New Zealand would not meet his requirements in regard to his request for a quota, 'his concern being the protection of British farmers against excessive importation's. RESTRICTION SCHEME. \ VOLUNTARY OR COMPULSORY. DOMINIONS’ ALTERNATIVE. United Press Assn.—Eire. Tel. Copyright LONDON, July 28. The Daily Telegraph’s special correspondent says he is in a position to state that the Dominion leaders in the past 48 hours have recognised that they are spoiling their own chances, besides those of the British farmers, by flooding the British market with their agricultural products. The Dominions have agreed that their experts forthwith shall enter into avdetailed discussion with the experts of the United Kingdom on each product Involved, with a view to determining what proportion of the United Kingdom market should be assured to them. <•

Failure to reach a voluntary limitation of exports on terms considered by the British Government as fair would inevitably lead to the imposition by Britain of import restrictions directed to the same end.