NEW ZEALAND MEAT.

Taranaki Daily News, 31 October 1916, Page 6

NEW ZEALAND MEAT.

THE NEW PRICES. THE PRODUCERS SATISFIED^ By Telegraph.—Press .Association Wellington, October 28 Speaking to a reporter after Friday's conference, several representatives of the producers themselves as being fairly well satisfied with the new scale of prices payable by the Imperial Government for \ew 'Zealand meat. They recognised that the prices to be paid from now until the end of the war, and possibly for six months after the conclusion of peace, Were thoroughly profitable from the point jf view of the tanner, even if they did not represent maximum values in the open market, and they appreciated the advantage of being able to sell the meat f.o b., at a time when the shortage of shipping was causing considerable anxiety "* to men engaged iu other branches of production. But they were disappointed that tlie Imperial Government had declined to interfere with the arrangements for the retail sale of New Zealand meat in the United Kingdom. "We really were less concerned atout getting improved prices than we were about checking speculation in New Zealand meat in the Old Country." said one gentleman. "The Sew Zealand farmer is not in business for his health, and naturally he wants to get the best price possible for his products. But he would have been content with the old scale of prices—a very profitable scale —if he had been assured that he was benefiting the people of the Motherland by selling below the world's market rates under the requisitioning scheme. Our complaint was that while we were selling the best mutton at •l ! / 2 d. per lb., f.0.b., tiie retailers in the United Kingdom were charging more than twice that price, thus proving that our comparatively low price was benefitting the merchant and speculator, and not the British consumer. The grievance is not removed by the increase of y 8 d. per lb. in the price to be paid here by the Imperial Government. We still have no guarantee that firms operating in the United Kingdom will

sot njake a very big profit out of the meat before it reaches the consumer. 1 am referring, of ■course, to that portion of the meat not required for army purposes. "The maintenance' of the existing selling arrangements in the United Kingdom, moreover, leaves us with a suspicion that the interests of. the Hew Zealand farmer may suffer alter the war owing to an advantage having been given to foreign concerns. We suspect, in short, that the American trusts -arc making a good thing out of New Zealand meat, and, more serious still, that they are improving their footing in the London market at our expense. However, it is no good grumbling. I think we all understand that we are getting a very good price, and that the Ministers in London have done the best they can for us. We have to recognise that the British Board of Trade holds a dominating position, since it controls the shipping that is necessary to get New Zealand meat to the market, and that we cannot get behind its decisions. Mr. Masscy and _ Sir Joseph Ward understood the position well enough 'before they left here, and they will have represented it strongly." A Sodthevn farmer expressed some concern with regard to the demand of the British Board of Trade tor a »e(luelion in storage charges "by about onehalf." During last season, he said, the •iloraje charges admittedly were high, end the total bill; paid by "the Imperial authorities in this connection, according to a statement made at the conterence, had been *~. tnc neighbourhood of £750,000. But. in cpite of the storage charges, meat had accumulated in the New Zealand stores to such an extent that freezing factories hail to curtail their operations, and many farmers suffered 'severely through being unable to get their fat stock into the works at the best time. "The Imperial Government has stated several times that during the war big stocks of frozen meat are being kept in hand," said this producer. "It is not to the advantage of New Zealand that stocks should be kept in this country and I hooe that tlie reduction of storage charges does not mean that efforts to move t'.e meat promptly from the Dominion factories will be relaxed this season. A glut in the stores is disastrous to tlie farmers."

Tho representatives of the freezing factories who met the Minister for Agriculture on Thursday set up a committee to consider the demand r.f the Imperial Board of Trade for a reduction of storage charges. The report of this committee has not yet been presetted, but it is anticipated that an offer to be made by the companies will represent a substantial reduction on the storage charges that prevailed last season. The companies may pass some part of the concession on to the farmers bv a slight increase "in freezing charges. The capacity of the refrigerating stores attached to the New Zealand freezing factories has been increased substantially during the last two years, and it is admitted that storage, even at a reduced rato, is highly profitable from the point of view of the companies.