NGATEA MEAT PRICES.

Hauraki Plains Gazette, Volume XXXIII, Issue 4375, 8 February 1922, Page 1

NGATEA MEAT PRICES.

Sir,. —Re meat prices, how is.it that Paeroa can sell meat so much cheaper than the Ngatea butcher can? Paeroa sells a shin of beef for sixpence, but the Ngatea butcher charges threepence per pound. That means ope buying a shin at Ngatea would have to pay from Is 6d tp 2s flor it. What about all the cows that are sold at Ngatea at frony 7s to 10s per cwt? The butcher gets the hide and it would be worth 15s to 20s. If a man takes a trip round to the different sales he wifi see how cows are just Ipbout being given away. At the last sale Mr Walton sold a pen of bullocks from 830 to 900 lbs for £7 Bs. I would like to sell Mr Hayward some bullocks. At his price 800 lb bullocks at Ngatea makes from £7 to £7 ss. The following letter, which appear-t ed in a recent issue of the “Herald,” over the signature of Mr W. Ross, of Morningside, may be appropriately quoted in support of my contention that retail prices of meat are too far in advance of the market rates for beef cattle: <‘Si r __We have heard a great deal lately about the price of. milk. But what about the retail price of meat ? In our recent stock sales fat withers have been selling as low as 8s per head, and estimated to dress 651 b, which works out at abput l%d per lb, yet in pricing mutton in a suburban butcher’s shop it was quoted at 8d per lb for hind quarter, forequarter sd, and 4d for the cheapest cuts. I find the retail price of beef even higher in proportion than mutton. And still we are told the "cookie’ ought to smile.” CONSUMER. Ngatea, February 3, 1922,