HENS CALL A HALT

Wairarapa Times-Age, 3 May 1938, Page 8

HENS CALL A HALT

IN BAD WEATHER BEFORE EASTER. SOME REASONS WHY EGGS ARE DEAR. (By Telegraph—Press Association). WELLINGTON, This Day. Local consumers have had cause during the past week or so to sympathise with the Dunedin public in the matter of eggs, the wholesale price in Wellington being equal to the retail price in Dunedin. Inquiries today from the Internal Marketing Department revealed that the egg market this year has been one of the most difficult ever experienced. April and May are months when eggs are in the shortest supply, but this year arrangements to meet the position were somewhat thrown out of gear by unusually fine weather towards the end of March and early last month, which kept the supply considerably above the cusomary level for the period. After the requirements of the local market had been provided for, the surplus was exported. Then, with the break in the weather before Easter, hens suddenly decided to close down, with the result that the market was more or less caught on the hop. Prices went up so high that people started murmuring that eggs had never been so costly before. Reference to records, however, shows that A grade eggs last year sold at 2s 91d and the lowest April and May quotation during the depression was 2s 21d in 1934. Last year’s maximum was also the maximum in 1931, but in the previous year the top price was 3s sd. Except for a rise to 3s lOd in 1927, the top price from 1924 to 1928 was constant at 3s 4d. In 1922, a slump year, it was as low as 2s lOd, but in the previous year it went to ■ls 3d and in 1920 the record for postwar years was reached at 4s 6d. In addition to the shortage of supply, the price has been forced up this season by an increased demand resulting from greater public spending power.