GERMAN MEAT FAMINE.

Taranaki Daily News, Volume LV, Issue 146, 7 November 1912, Page 7

GERMAN MEAT FAMINE.

TRIAL FUR FROZEN MEAT. London, September *2l. According to the Shipping Gazette, th< statement made last week that 100,00( carcases of Australian mutton are to b< shipped to Germany is an, exaggeration The paper states: "We understand that the shipment t( he made is merely a trial of 10Q car cases. "For years past the hope has prevail ed that ultimately Germany would be come a regular importer of frozen pro duce, but up to the present the agrariai influence has been so powerful as practically to prevent any such importation That Germany will, in due time, find il necessary largely to import frozen meai is generally believed, but it is not expected that this will occur for some considerable time." Owing to the growing scarcity of cattle the prices of meat in Germany have actually attained a height which some years ago would have been looked on as fantastic. In spite of the gravity of the problem, the Government, whose staunchest supporters are to be found among the agrarians, shows little inclination to remedy the prevailing distress, which is making itself most sorely felt in the industrial centres of the west. Corporations and municipalities are inarching in the wake of the Socialist party in their endeavors to rouse the Government from its apathy, and petitions are being spnt in almost daily for the opening of tie frontiers and the importation of chilled and frozen meat. In some of the larger towns the municipal authorities have even gone so far as to supply the poorer classes with meat at cost price, thus doing away with the large profits made by intermediaries. But the question is whether well-meant proposals and measures of this kind will cure the evil at the root. As a matter of fact, German agriculture is unable to jfroduce sufficient cattle to meet the demands of the market, and it will remain in this state of inI efficiency so long as the existing high duties on grain make tillage more lucrative than the slower process of cattle rearing. Hence the only method of mending mattei'3 would be the abolition., or at least the reduction of import duties. SIGNIFICANT ACTION. Schoeneberg, one of the divisions of ,Greater Berlin, is the first division of the capital to take additional steps to meet the situation that has been, caused by the rapid increase in the of meat. These steps are independent of anything which the State is now doing, or may do, in the future. Schoeneberg has vot.ed a credit of £IOOO for the purchase of foreign meat, frozen or fresh, to be sold by the communal authorities. On an estate belonging to Schoeneberg, swine are to be fattened. A beginning rvvill be made with the fattening of 150 •pigs. These are to be slaughtered and sold by the communal officials, and £SOO will be expended in this direction. ■ Twelve acres of communal land are to be ■ given, to the rabbit breeders of Schoeneberg for the extension of their operations, and £l5O yearly will be granted to other rabbit breeders, 1 on condition that they supply 20,000 rabbits : yearly. Efforts are also to be made to increase the sale of sea fish, and to establish sea fish'markets in populous localities. This may all appear inadequate, but it points to the direction in which the thoughts of the heads of the German municipalities are turning and, as such, it is not without significance.