BRITAIN'S MEAT

Rotorua Morning Post, Volume 2, Issue 415, 27 December 1932, Page 7

BRITAIN'S MEAT

WILL IT COST MORE? MTLL THE QUOTA HELP THE EMPIRE AND BRITISH EARMERS SOME PROBUEMS (Publislied by arrang'enient with the Auckland Provincial Executive New Zealand Farmers' Union.) "To cut off a quarter from our recent level of foreign frozen meat supplies before the end of next year is a procedure which will not neeessarily pass olf smoothly. . The danger of the price raising process going further than the authors of the scheme intend is clearly a real one." — FINANCIAL NEWS It is generally agreed that if the Ottawa proposals do result in the truth of the slogan, "Your food will cost you more," it will be the "meat quota" arrangement that will bring this about. The two shillings a quarter on wheat is not at all sure to raise the price of bread, but even in quarters in favour of the Ottawa Agreements some uneasiness is expressed on this question. The scheme for the restriction of the importation of foreign meat in Great Britain is designed, so the "Times" asserts. "To hring about that rise in wholesale prices by which alone British and Dominion growers can be saved from ruin, and which — it is a point on which too much emphasis cannot ha laid — ^will also benefit the foreign grower in Argentina and elsewhere, and will constitute an important set-off to what he will lose in the restriction of the quantity he is to be allowed to sell. j "During the next eighteen months the imports of foreign mutton and j lamh and frozen beef will be reduced ! by quarterly stages until at the end of the period only 65 per eent. of the amount imported during 1931-32 will be permitted to enter. The imports of chilled heef, which is the product in which Argentina' is chiefly interested, will not be reduced below the level of the basic year 1931-32, but will not be allowed to exeeed that figui-e. Restrictions Can Be Removed at Any Time "In the meantime the British and Dominion Governments will consult togother in order to devise some permanent scheme for 'orderly marketing,' the ohject of which will be Tirst to secure developanent of home production, and, secondly to give the Dominions 'an expanding share of imports into the United Kingdom.' An important proviso secures the freedom of the British Government to remove the restrictiona on foreign imports if at any time the supplies of meat are inadequate to meet the needs of consumers in the United Kingdom. "In view of the fact that foreign producers as well as those of Great Britain and of the Dominion will benefit from the rise in wholesale prices which tliese regulations are intended to secure there seems nothing in all this or in any other part of the agreements, to prejudice seriously the approaching negotiations with the Scandinavian and South American countries, the two groups with which it is most important that Great Britain should maintain close permanent commercial relations." "The price of frozen meat," asserts the Daily Mail, "has fallen- so low that disaster threatens the livestock industry both here and in the Domin- ■ ions, if no advance in the wholesale j figures takes place. I "The hope of the Government is 1 that it may he possible to raise the j wholesale price without the retail price being affected, as the gap be- ( tween the two is now enormous." j Protecting the Consumer "This almost certainly will," states : the Daily Telegraph, "be misrepres- I entcd as a wicked attempt to make ! the British consumer pay more for his meat. But it is a sufficient answer ■even so far as the consumer's interest is concerned to point out that if i the livestock industries of the world j are ruined, as they are now far on the , way to be, meat supplies will shrivel, and then prices would bound up so steeply that the poorest meat would become a luxury. Wholesale prices

can rise a long1 way from their present level without there being any reasonable excuse for advancing retail prices, and it will be seen that the Government are careful to leave the door open for a revision of their restrictive policy in the light of the experience which will he gained during the coming year."