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Press, Volume LVII, Issue 17111, 5 April 1921, Page 6

The cablegram from London appearing in yesterday's ''Press" regarding decontrol prices of meat should haVo a steadying effect on lamb and mutton values in the Dominion. The Incorporated Society of Meat Importers has resumed the issue of quotations, and the figure mentioned for New Zealand lamb, transhipped from the United States, is 12d "for a\l varieties," and "Australian new season's" 12Jd. The New Zealand lamb quoted is last year's, which has been meandering about for six months and more —first of all to New York, there held in cool store for a period, and then resJhipped and sent on to the United Kingdom. That it should be quoted at 12d, whilst new Australian lamb, which is generally inferior to tho .Ntew Zealand product, is quoted three furthings higher, appears to indicate quit-e strongly that this season's lamb should be fully worth in England the controlled price of Is Id pei lb. Canterbury wether mutton is quoted at up to 83d, and North Island to B{jd, whilst owe figures at the satisfactory price of 7j'd. All this mutton, it is to be presumed, is, like tho lamb, last season's, so that the ruling pricesi for export in the Dominion of 3d for wetlher, les3 than 2d for ewe, and 53d for lamb, are, appatently, quito on the conservative side. The general experience of postcontrol prices has been towards a dVop, and exporters, perhaps, cannot bo blamed for anticipating a similar experiencejiwith meat, and providing accordingly. The cabled figures should result in a freer fat stock market in the Dominion henceforth.

The number of rats in Ghristchureh just now may not be sufficiently great to be regarded as a plague, but there is evidence from many quarters that iflie creatures are more numerous than they used to be and than they should be. Evidently what is wanted is one of those periodic plague scares, when everybody, from the Health Department downward, wakes up to the fact tJhat the rat i 6 a persistent enemy of public health, and acts accordingly, with the result that great mortality ensues among the rat population. At Home, ihe rat came under the ban of the Legislature two years ago, and the Government has the vigorous and untiring assistance of the Vermin Repression Society in enforcing the Act. The Society also carries on an energetic propaganda with the purpose of strengthening the hand 9 oi the Minis-

ter of Agriculture in fighting the rat. It is no unimportant job, for it has been calculated that the whole cost of the British old age pensions—some 28 millions—might be saved to the country every year if the annual destruction of food by rats could «e prevented. And this estimate takes no account of thd damage done by rats to articles other than food.

In the United States, where official war against the rat is also being waged, the Biological Survey has estimated that there must be at least a hundred million rats in the country, ;.nd that each consumes at least two dollars' worth of food a year, which means that in this direction alone rats cost America forty millions sterling annually. To this amount must be added the cost of the destruction' wrought by rats in shops and warehouses, on farms, and in food spoiled but not consumed. The plague' is so bad in New York that the construction of a rat-proof concrete wall a\\ round the -n-harves and harbour was seriously contemplated and, though it meant building altogether 500 miles of wall, might have been undertaken if it had not been that there was not enough cement in the country for the job.

The arrival of the Crown Piince Hirohito of Japan at Colombo, as reported by cable last week, was apparently the first stage of a tour of the world which, according to Japanese napers, is to include England aud the Continent, and possibly the United States. Opinion among Americans is that he will be at somewhat of a disadvantage in visiting America, as in their phrase, (he will have "to go some" to equal the favourable impression created by the Prince of Wales. Hirohito is twenty years old, and is spoken of by English lesidents as "a. thoroughly human sort of chap," fond of sports and of good physique, thanks to the efforts of a corps of the greatest experts and specialists in Japan, <y/ho were employed to map out a course of physical training for him, and apparently to see that ho carried it out. It must have been rather a serious business, for we read that when the Crown Prince was learning swimming "it was no uncommon sight to see a number of middle-aged men of high degree standing up to their waists in the sea, and holding a rope round the'place in which the Prince was to swim." Which meant, of course, that any stray shark had to break through a courtiers before it reached the Prince. It is to the Prince's credit that that sort of thing does not appeal to him in the least; he is happiest when he is, so to speak, ''off the chain." For the rest, he is quiet, undemonstrative, and warmhearted, with some of the qualities of leadership. It was understood that he was to be accompanied on his tour by his chief personal adviser, the famous Admiral Togo.