BUTCHER' MEAT.

Dunstan Times, Issue 311, 10 April 1868, Page 3

BUTCHER' MEAT.

TO THE EDITOR OF THE DVNSTAN TIMES. Sir; —Your lending article in a previous issue , anenl the price of butchers meat, will he hailed with satisfaction by the entire mining community. It- was high time some one spoke out on so important a ■ subject as the price of meat, the present exorbitant chargesbeiugnot onlyfas you justlyobscrve) enough to deter any family from Bottling here, but it has also' acted most disastrously for the Province inasmuch as it has tended more than any thing else to depopulate it, people being comellcd to leave for other places. Unfortunately for the inhabitants of the district, the supply of meat is in the hands of two firms, so that without the people themselves take the. thing in hand, I fear meat will not fall in price. If the residents of Clyde and Alexandra were unan-

imous, it would lie an easy matter to crush such a scandalous monopoly. Prices in every thing have decreased since the Dunstan Gold Fields were opened. Meat is the only exception. It is the duty of the busine BS people, as well as of the miners, to endeavour to cheapen an article entering so largely into consumption. ( Some three months ago an advertisement appeared in theDunstauTimes requiring men to work on the Teviot road. The wages offered were Ts per day, now assuming that full time was made how is it possible that a man with a family could exist, the present prices of moat would absorb half his earnings, consequently the whole family wouMbotoa point little short of starvation. ( If the province is to advance beyond its present position, and if our business men wish to retain the present European population on the Gold Fields ( their numbers are steadily diminishing ) it behoves them at once to find a remedy for this monstrous state of things. The Dunedin papers may howl forth the riches of Otago, Superintendents may pay (lying visits to the Gold Fields, Mining Conferences may assemble in Dunedin, and squabble over the size of claims , but itwill avail the Province nothing, without the costof living is brought to a reasonable limit, and the first i-tep in this direction is a crusade against the Butchers. It is quite possible to establish co-operative societies the same as exists now in England, and more especially in France, if this wore done the price of meat could be reduced nearly one halt. It is the universal complaint of every one that times are very dull, nor can this be wondered at, when we consider that the cost of working claims on the Gold Fields, added to the cost of the necessaries of life absorb the entire income of the Mining Community. 1 am etc. W. H. MUNFORD. Clyde, April 6, 1868.