MEAT CONGESTION.

Wairarapa Age, 23 March 1920, Page 4

MEAT CONGESTION.

Relative to the meat congestion here, The Times remarks that the consumption of meat in Great Britain is now 30 per cent, less than when the war was at its worst. "Many civilians accustomed themselves to the strict meat rations to which they were then confined, and frequently found that they were none the worse, at any rate, for their temperance. Many of these civilians have no longer their pre-war appetite for meat, and, also, they cannot afford to buy largely at the present high prices charged. Business men are saying that if the Government would release control prices of imported meat would at once fall by 3d or 4d a pound, and that New Zealand mutton, for instance, instead of now being sold at a fixed maximum price of IOJd a pound, would be sold at 6d a pound." The High Commissioner is of opinion that prices should be lowered, and the stocks thus cleared, if only to prevent the huge supplies in store from "going wrong." The meat has been kept so long in cold store both here and in New Zealand that it is not at all attractive in appearance by the time it reaches the retail shops. And complaints are rife of the rough treatment it receives at Smithfield.