THE MEAT TRUST MENACE

Dominion, Volume 10, Issue 2913, 8 November 1916, Page 8

THE MEAT TRUST MENACE

' (To the Editor.) Sir, —Under this heading your correspondent, Mr. Elliot, deals with some features of tho working of this combination, but it is not .necessary to go to America for an illustration of their methods in dealing with individuals, and the illustration given is common practice there for many years. I could givo an illustration no farther away than Northern Quoensland, whero the Trust, after gaining control of two large stations thi\t a local butcher got 'his stock from for many years up to then, asked him to pay the new owners a price that was simply prohibitive, and ho got tho alternative of paying it or getting stock from such a distaiico that it spelt ruiu to him in either way. We must bear in mind that two largo holdings there are reckoned in square miles, not acres, but that is beside the question. This subject has been referred to in tho papers for years, and I would like to ask what the New Zealand meatcompanies havo.done to meet the situation. Mr. Elliot speaks of the farmers hiding their heads in the sand like tho ostrich. I might carry the simile a little further and say that the meat' companies. Have theirs buried in office accounts, while the agents and spies of the Trust sit in elevated positions ready to .counter each move of the other parties. Your paper, as long ago as May, 1.914, struck the weak spot in the position in a leaderette on this subject, where it mentioned that "it seems to be fairly evident that neither the Government nor the companies have. any intelligent officers whose duty it is to shadow the Trust or those suspected o£ being its agents." That remark was fairly correct, as I was one of a small circle engaged on this class of work while following different occupations in the meat export trade throughout. Australasia, from dealing with the farmer for his live stock to treating with the freezing companies on account of English firms, where quantity was no object so long as tho quality was right. But tho interest iof tho producer was never in my instructions, so it is hardly fair to blame the stock-raiser at this late date for the position of affairs to-day. Outside my own work I wont to tho trouble of bringing to tho notice of companies in this trade, or rather, tflio responsible parties connnected with them, but except for a polite acknowledgment it never wont any farther.

Your correspondent, like many others in Now Zealand, has a. hazy idea that the, Legislature can como to tho "help of the producers. I have got no such sublime faith in that respect. After working under intrusions in thcea investigations and bringing valuable knowledge compiled at great trouble and expense, in many cases, the Minister in charge usually handed it ovor to some Departmental official, and if it was not politic to move, have it pigeonholed until the .matter .was'forgotten. I tried to get our own Government interested, but the Department has no instructions to act no matter how glaring the case mav bo. But the Trusts are not such a secret society as they aro sometimes mado out to be, for with tho knowledge in liand it lias not been so hard to forecast tho moves. It follows methods here that havo dono duty elsewhero quite openly. In recent investigations in some of the South American States their representatives mado no secret of their intentions and the "campos" (farmers) admitted to me they had to accept their conditions, as price was the determining factor with them. Their managers in tho leading meat markets throughout tllfl United Kingdom were Quito frank about their intentions. (I'll admit I had many advantages, as'' I have been connected with'the trade for over twenty years, and there is a freemasonry about it that would not ho accorded an official of a colonial firm with a sheaf of introductions.)

There are some othor points about your correspondent's letter tliat aro not quite clear to tho public. How, for instance, those firms mentioned can pay extra prices for lamb hero so as to get it released at the other end, as the lamb becomes the property of the Board of Trade, and got to be valued before being released again. Now I know those assessors, as one of them was in tho same firm as the writer for some years in Australia, and the., other was the head of a large /concern in tho meat trado that I ivas employed by later. Both these gentlemen are competent, but they have no concern with tho meat after it is valued by them. But just at this point a bit of fine work is put in by certain Trust operators which can be explained, but it looks like a network of trenches and communication trenches at the* front, as near as anything I <jan compare it to, each trench being a controlled or allied firm. Hore in New Zealand wo have controlled and allied firms of the Trust in operation for years, but of late I notice suspicion of each other is fostered by certain parties, and some of them quite innocent of any connection with tho Trust at all, Thero is a reason for this—it keeps them from comparing notes. Then there aro other methods of getting supplies which means control of thp trade, from firms in the New Zealand meat trade

with a London agent that would not be willing to sell to a Trust firm, but will sell to a speculator wlio hands the "oods over to tho Trust agent. Still,' I don't think our producers arc going to be helped much by writing to the newspapers when such men as John Cooke pointed this out, and tho effects it would have on stock-raisere in New Zealand. If any man in the trade has a knowledge of .the effects of Trust methods lie has, and yet his was "like a voice in the wilderness" for all the attention that was paid to his warning. But there was one gleam of humour quito recently on this sombre subject when a South Island paper had quite a long article on a new phase of tho meat trade, where two powerful Trust firms were out to compete with each other! This was copied by other Now Zealand papers. Poor.deluded public! Tbey aro easily, supplied with information when they swallow this. But the Trusts are after other game than meat. Food supply was looming larger in their estimation even before tho war, and one of the members of the combination is getting a hand in the dairy produce business here. Their methods will be slightly different in this business to meet the ciroumstancos. Now it is not for me to lay down plans in a letter to tho paper, but the farmors of New Zealand have no help in the world in this business but themselves if they are to hold their own. They have got farmers' unions and stockownersi associations; let them develop these agencies and combine under leaders with a wide view of the subject and meet this common enemy with tho samo weapons employed by it, or take the consequences. Apologising for occupying so much space,—l am, etc., J. if. O'HAGAN. Woodville, H.B.