MEAT.

Taihape Daily Times, 5 August 1919, Page 7

MEAT.

SEASON BLAMED FOR PRICES. FLESH IN STORAGE. BELONGS TO IMPERIAL GOVERNMENT. ‘Now that the dairy and the killing season has closed, most of the freezing works that are scattered about the country have suspended. their operations for the time -being, and they now await the next year’s producing time, although their refrigerating plants will have to be kept running through the whole time of the winter slackness. All the :Workfs~ _.are practically filled‘ to: overflowing with meat, but in every case these careases are the direct prop\ert_v of the Imperial Government, whose requisition does not expire until June next year, and, ‘therefore, will embrace the most of the coming season.

Those people who are at the head of the freezing industry in Auckland are disposed to blame‘ the season just closed, rather than any. other factors, for the price of meat in the city and its province. Their stores are well filled with flesh, but it is not theirs to dispose of Without the sanction of the Imperial Government, and in saying the season has not been quite as good as it might’ have been, they imply that this fact has contributed to any rise, or

coming rise, in prices. The wet spring was followed by a. very dry summer, and expectations of '2l good an'tunln rose only to be disappointed. So the thing stands this way, that if the season had -been better the works would have been compelled to close down much earlier than they did, and this would haxie left. much meat that would have been -directly available to the eonsunier in New Zealand, thus eont.l'i;buting ‘rather ‘to slower -than ‘to higher prices. At the present time the Aueklmid Farniers, Freezing Company alone is S tvated to liave tWellty—five million pounds of meat. in store, all belonging‘ to the Imperial‘ Government, and await-

ing shipment. The same company spent £50,000 last year to increase storage accommodation, 9. similar sum the year before, and about the same amount previously. All this extra acconnnedation will have served its purpose when normal conditions recur, and much “of it will be what. may be termed “a. poor asset.” But in the meantime all this flesh in storage is building up a big bill for the Imperial Government to pay. _

Before the War the freezing and dairy companies had contracts with the shipping lines that called for a, boat, to leave New Zealand for the other side Of the Wol‘ld every alternate Thursday. Since the War that has been impossible, and during‘ the past six months the exporters have been supplied with a long series of promises for better shipping services to get their stored goods away. These promises have never materialised, and although the immediate shipping «outlook has not improved lately, hopes for at least a, partial resumption in the near future are very much brighter, because abnormal conditions are nearer their end. Some of these great. stocks of Imperiafi meat are ‘now availab‘le ‘Em: the retail market, should there be demand for them, because the Imperial a,uthorities have released a 'exe:nta’ln amount to supply the local market.