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Hokitika Guardian, 9 June 1924, Page 2

• IIK corespondent who wrote u.s the other day in regard to work and wages quoted the example of the price of meat. He related that sometimes heel was bought very cheaply at tl.e market hut tile iiiiMiinrr did not always get the benefit of the drop in prices. Trades] coplc it must ho rememheied 1 1. I've to govern their business by the law of averages. I’riees fluctuate ill all i usiiiess transactions, and it is not possible to buy always to the best advantage. Whatever the price of meat at the market it still has to go through the same handling befote it reaches 'the consumer. The butcher lias his ordinary charges to defray, and any benefit lie might get at one season nt the year is olton discounted in the following. Butchers do not appear to grow very affluent in any event, -so that we may take it wTiile beef may be cheap comparatively .speaking, mutton may be at such a price as to discount any passing jiiefit gained trom the former. In cities where hoteliers sell for cash over the counter, meat is often to be seen quoted very eiieaply. But the smaller tradesman who is not able to conduct a cash trade has to book the bulk of his s.P. ■

his profits disappear in uncollected kook debts. The .records t) f the present times show that not a few butchers are meeting their fate in the Eankruptey court. On the general question of supply and demand as affecting the meat trade, it must be lometrJiered that there is an open market always. It is not a monopoly, and that while there may be an understanding among the trade to keep up prices for selfpreservation such tactics are not any different to those of labor unions which keep uj) prices for the betterment of their class. Always, too. there is an outside supplier in the person of the farmer who will sell meat where he can do so profitably, hut the fact that so few of the producer stock raisers outer on the business of the retail trade themselves, suggest that tho profit iq tho game which some believe to exist, is more apparent than real. Tn the end .supply and demand governs meat prices as other commodities, and to that law the tradesman has to how. often to his own cost and loss.

Dp Brets is 3 Veil V‘ no svTt authority

on the traditional history of the nativo race of which lie is a conspicuous figure in Dominion life. He lias been delivering a series of lectures on tho Maoris anil has been explaining the traditional records relating to the advent of the native race to New Zealand. Tho amazing voyages of Polynesians during the Stone Age were described by Dr Buck in his introduction in a recent lecture at Christchurch. The first voyagers to these regions, lie said, came in outrigger faiioes (toll A.D. The Maoris belonged to the eastern group of the Polynesians. The centre of the later dissemination of the eastern Polynesians was Tahiti, which was the Maoris’ llawa.iki. lamed in their legends and traditions as their ancestral home. Ku; ••

was the first navigator to come to New Zealand from Hawaiki : hut he did not settle here. Ilis voyages wee made about- Hot) years ago. About *•>() years tigo. according to the legends, other navigators came from Hawaiki. settling on the east coast ol the North Island. Tribesmen believed that there were no people in Now Zealand "lien Kiipe paid his visit, but that lliete. were people when the first Polynesian settlers arrived on the east coast, and that those people had the physical characters of the Melanesians. The canoes, knn"n as the Fleet, brought the great migi at itui from Hawaiki later. I lie element of truth at the base of those traditions, remarked Dr Buck, must ho taken seriously, even in scientific research.