Meeting gets into Gear

The next issue of any substance was Borthwicks. It was moved something to the effect that "This Association oppose any take over of the Gear Meat Co. by Thos. Borthwick and Sons as it would be detrimental to the interests of NZ people and would lead to greater manipulation of NZ Industry by foreign monopolies".

A bloke called-David Murray (twitching "The Collected Works of Mao Tse Tung" in one hand and a chewed and soggy copy Of Salient in the other) spoke to the motion outlining the issues.

Borthwicks is based in Britain (definitely not a co-operative as was suggested at the meeting) and is at present trying to take over the Gear Meat Company, of Petone. While Borthwicks have developed massive investments in Britain itself, Australia and the Americas, as well as aquiring three freezing works in NZ. Gear meat is an ordinary New Zealand public company limiting it's operations to the freezing works in Petone and various small retail outlets. David Tripe pointed out that if Borthwicks buy up Gear, it is very likely that the operations of the Petone Freezing works will come to an end. Further, the aquisition of the Petone works will, when added to Borthwicks present investments in NZ (the freezing works at Waitara, Fielding, and Waingawa and Longburn) give Borthwicks a total monopoly of stock-killing in the Southern part of the North Island. David Tripe also mentioned the effect the takeover would have on the NZ economy. At present the NZ economy is based on wool, meat and dairy products, and because of the limited nature of it's exports, our economy is totally servile to foreign markets. The extension of British control of our meat industry can only hinder Ner Zealand's development as an independant nation with a self-reliant economy. The motion was eventually passed.