SUPPLY OF EGGS

Dominion, Volume 8, Issue 2386, 16 February 1915, Page 6

SUPPLY OF EGGS

SERIOUS SHORTAGE PROBABLIi.

Confectioners right through New Zealand are being embarrassed' by the scarcity of eggs, and the almost certain prospect of a very much more serious shortage when the winter months come. In ordinary seasons during the summer eggs are plentiful and cheap, and confectioners buy them and pre-' serve them for winter use. One of the objects of this procedure is to save expense, but it is necessary, for another, reason: if the big users of eggs for trade purposes were to be competitors for eggs in the winter there would never , be enough to satisfy normal demands at anything like normal prices. A few observations on the state of, the egg. market were made by Mr. J.' Godber in conversation with a Dominion reporter. _ "At the present time." he ' said, "owing to.the very high price of grain, poultry keepers are killing off their birds and sending, them wholesale into the markets, and the result is sure to be that it will be impossible to get ■ eggs in the winter time for use in oin\' business. At this period of the year' eggs usually cost Is. sd. or Is. 6d. a dozen.' Now eggs are'retailing at 2s. a dozen, and what the price will be in the winter no one cau say. In my opinion the Government ought to remove the duty on imported eggs. ( It is now 20 per cent., or 30 per cent., if we get them from America. The position is aggravated by tho fact.tnat the supply of eggs from the Continent, from Belgium, Holland, and' Germany, which formerly came to Now Zealand, is entirely stopped. Those of us who do not believe in putting synthetic substitutes for eggs into our goods are in a quandaryas to what to dp. I certainly think that during tho war, when the inflation of the price of grain is unavoidable, the Government ought to suspeud the duty on eggs in the interests of the general community."