LONDON BUTCHER'S PAGEANTRY

Rotorua Morning Post, Issue 5284, 21 December 1946, Page 2

LONDON BUTCHER'S PAGEANTRY

HISTORIC CEi«EMONY TRANSPLAINfTED TO ARGENTINA. BUENOiS AIRES. The beefy ties of Great Britain and ^.rgentina were illustrated. ihere by the unique transplantation of ancient London pageantry in a ceremony by ' which General. Juan D. Perpn became - the first South American president to be made ap honorary freeman of the Worshipful Company of Biutchers of 1 the - "City" — the financial centre of London. It was no proxy spectacle. The Plaza Hotel ,in the iheart of modern Buenos Aires, which so far has known only stately receptions and fashionible bride-tea parades, was the scene a full livery banquet, complete with ;he fully-gowned master of the 97'0-year-old Company of Butchers, and :he Beadle and his mace. This Company to-day is more of a fraternal :han a working gjiild. AH its members ievertheless are presumed to hay.e some connection with the meat indus:ry. The master, J. B. Swain, is the irst of that high livery office to leave London and carry with him on an sverseas pilgrimage miach of the tralition and pageantry assocated. with lis office. He was resplendent in his :ur-trimmed master's robes and gold ifcain of office with its enamelled nedallions and, attended by his doaked beadle wtih his staff of office, vas an animated and outstanding host ;o an assembly of diplomats and comnercial representatives of fwo nations )ound together in their stoclcbreeding rnd meat marketing industries. Behind the central section of the ong dining tables sat the master, f. B. Swain and his wife with the President of the Argentine republic md Mrs. Peron, the vice-president and vlrs. Quijano, the Brtiish Ambasasdor ■_nd Lady Leeper. The British and Argentine fiags fla,nke'd the sym|bolic I >anner of the Company of Butchers. Picturesque Scene. The picturesque little ceremony was .taged just before the banquet. Mr. Jwain, heir to the Company's powers is its 97.0th master, invested General 3eron as an honorary freman of the vncient Livery Company. A reproducion of the document had been preiared, and two vellums were inscri'bed, ne in Spanish for the Presldent's reention, and one in lEinglish for the lompany's records. Y£r. Swain belofngs to the /meat ndustry as his London Coekney for>ears have done since 1760. He ran .way from school at the age of 14 o become a butcher's delivery *boy .t a shop but a few yards from the I )ld Butchers Hall which was destroyj :d in the London blitz. Forty years '.go he .was ne of the first salesmen o distribute Argentine chilled beef n Smithfield market. He mentioned hese biographical details in a brief peech' in which he came to his main )oint — that .while his Livery Company reasured its traditions it was not >uried in the past but looking ever 0 the future and to establishing new msiness precedens. As if to emphasise his point, standag by him was Sir Henry Turner, he New Zealand chief of the liveitock division of the Britis.h Food '/linistry, who had ijust concluded the letailed agreement on Argentine beef rices for the next two years. "It was 1 hard bargain, but a gopd.one for, the wo countries," declared Sir Henry.