NEW ZEALAND MEAT.

Taihape Daily Times, Issue 220, 5 October 1917, Page 2

NEW ZEALAND MEAT.

CAUSE OP HIGH PRICES. ARTICLE GROWING POPULAR. A business man who probably understands the Australasian meat trade better than anyone esle in London explained the other day that the disparity, in the price at which New Zealand meat reaches the wholesale dealer and that at which it reaches the public is duo in reality to the smallness of the supply _ Owing to the shortage of tonnage and the fact that the Australian and New Zealand meat is requisitioned for the army, there is a very limited surplus to put on the market here for civilian consumption. It is released by the authorities and handled by the selling agents who are nominated by the producers in New Zealand for that purpose, the Government paying them their com-r mission. The prices at which the meat is sold are fixed by the authorities to cover cost. But, owing to the short supply, a butcher who has a normal trade, of say, 10 lambs, could perhaps, only get one imported carcase The remaining nine had to be provided from stocks of English or Scotch, which cost him, say, 11s 74d per pound. To have sold the New Zealand carcase at a little over lOd would have pleased the half-dozen or so early-comers who got a share of it, but the story of their good luck would only have added to the discontent of the dozens of latercustomers who had to pay something more than Is Tid a pound for the home-grown meat, which formed the balance of his stock. It is not practicable for a retailer, to make two prices where the supply of the cheaper variety is so limited, and obviously the reasonable course is to average the price over the whole 10 carcases. This is, in fact, the usual course, and is the cause of New Zealand meat, which goes to the wholesaler, at something over lOd, reaching the householder at something between Is 6d and 2s.

Ask whether New Zealand meat was being prejudiced by present conditions, this authority said he thought it was rather the other way about. People were so anxious to get it on account of its cheapness that it was really being popularised.