MEAT TRUST METHODS.

Taranaki Daily News, 17 September 1921, Page 4

MEAT TRUST METHODS.

Whatever may be the merits of Armour’s dispute with the New Zealand Government relative to the license question, there can be but one opinion as to the sensational and absurd statements made by Armour’s representative in London to the Pal! Mall Gazette. The Pall Mall Gazette, although disclaiming any responsibility for the accuracy of the statement, shelters itself under the thread-bare excuse of the explanation being plausible. The Dominion has an official representative in London, to whom an inquiry could have been addressed and answered in a few minutes, and it is a matter for much regret that such a simple and honorable course was not adopted. As to the plausibility of the statement, what sort of conditions does the Pall Mall Gazette consider prevail in the Dominion from a sanitary point of view that would permit of “several hundred thousand sheep and lambs lying rotting in the storehouses at Christchurch, instead of being sent to the London markets”? The inference is that

this rotting meat will eventually be shipped to London, where food in that state would promptly be condemned and destroyed. The idea is too absurd even for creating a sensation. Equally reprehensible is the allegation that “one reason for the high meat prices in Britain

is tlie New Zealand Government’s refusal to allow Armours to export sheep and lambs.” As propaganda concerning beneficent ( ?) methods of the American Meat Trust in supplying cheap' meat, this assertion may be of service, but it lias no more to do with Armour’s grievance than to be on a par with tlie nightmare of rotting carcases. The idea that the New Zealand Government is deliberately holding up meat from shipment, and that the refusal to allow Armours to ship that meat, has the effect of maintaining high prices in Britain, is too preposterous for words. It is to the credit of Armour’s Christchurch agent that he promptly gave an absolute denial of the statement, the blame for which rests equally upon the man who hatched it and the paper responsible for its publication.