THE MEAT TRADE.

Taranaki Daily News, 3 February 1921, Page 5

THE MEAT TRADE.

THREAT OF THE TRUSTS. I AMERICAN COMPETITION IN TH ARGENTINE. I “The growth of the British and J cattle industry over the last ten yfl does not suggest that it has su£M material injury from the competition imported meat, though the latter ha J doubt kept the price of home-rail meat lower than it otherwise wJ ■ have been,” says the British commil which investigated the meat trade. 1 is plain that the Empire is or shol can be self-supporting in mutton 1 lamb, that there is nothing to fear fa the competition jf Argentine mut| and that the American meat compaa have no hold in the sheep-produil areas of Australia and New Zea J The case is very different with re 3 to beef. In 1913-14—the laet year | affected by the war and its consequea —about 60 per cent of our suppliJ beef and veal were produced at Hol about 7 per cent, in the British 1 minions, and nearly a third in ‘forJ countries’, i.e., South America Foil long time, oven given the most rd development of Honle and Domini production, we must be dependent j South America for a great part ®f I beef supplies, and the United Std meat companies have at present neal 60 per cent, of the beef output from 1 gentine and Uruguay, and about 75 j cent, of the capacity of the meat woi built or building in Brazil | “Here is the danger point to the H tish consumer. The American eompad entered the River Plate in 1907, and! 1909 they had 35 per cent. 4>f the trad in 1911, after a price-war, they ford the British and Argentine companies! agree to a division of the trade, whfl by about 43 per cent, fell to the Ame cans; in April, 1913, another price-W broke out Morris and Company leavi the combination and demanding an | creased share; in June, 1914, peace restored by the coneessione to the An ricans of an increased proportion, brir ing up their share of the trade to , per cent, of the total This last d pute was generally regarded as engi eered. It was characterised by t forcing up of lattle prices in Argsntl and the lowering of meat prices in En land, where for a time butchers coU buy good chilled meat at 2ld per 1 a fact which accounts for the benet lence with which some of them still 1 gard the American companies, though is not clear that the consumer benefit to the same extent as the retailer. "The combination or conference whi terminated the last price-war took f form of a pooling agreement. All t insulated shipping tonnage serving t River Plato was covered by contra* with the meat companies. Rivalry the purchase of cattle ceases to be neei sary, and as each of the companies the conference has full knowledge what meat is coming forward and wh the others are doing, there need be rivalry in selling. All the competito have the same market knowledge, a we get all the effects of a close combi ation, even though the signs of it a not so evident as when the Combii; tions Committee investigated in 19( 9. "In 1913 and 1914 the British coi panics in the Argentine had, as a co sequence of destructive competition, pass their ordinary dividends, and to s cure peace had to give up a large pr portion of their trade. To-day, Mon and Company, who started the fight’ 1913, are again demanding an increasi share- of the trade, and this time tin are supported by Wilson and Compan We found through all branches of t meat trade a general apprehension tb. the American meat companies were an ing at world dominion.”