Black Market in Dead Horses

New Zealand Listener, Volume 20, Issue 501, 28 January 1949, Page 19

Black Market in Dead Horses

OST New Zealanders know what it is to flog a dead horse, but they have had little experience so far of trading in dead horses, and less still of eating them. But this is no longer the case with the people of the United Kingdom. There a dead horse is worth more than a live one, and slaughtering is going on at such a rate that the farmer. who wants to work a horse can no longer compete against the butcher who wants to sell one. The position is so serious that it has been raised in Parliament. We quote below one of many sensational reports from recent

English newspapers-a "Public Opinion" summary of a speech

by

H.

Sutcliffe

Conservative Member of Parliament for Royton.

have killed in this country 162,654 horses, and that is not the total figure; that. is the number for only 24 _ cities, boroughs and urban districts from which I have been able to obtain figures. It does not tell the whole story by any means. I propose to give a selection of instances to illustrate what I mean. "At West Ham in 1945, 14,300 horses were slaughtered and in 1947, 19,200. For the first nine months of this year the figure is 14,239. At Acton, in 1945, the figure was 3,838; in 1947, 6,121; and, in the first nine months of 1948, 5,155. At Cambridge, in 1945, the total was 643; in 1947, 2,016; and, in the first nine months of this year, 2,728. In Rochdale, in 1945, the figure was 1,709; in 1947, 2,975; and in the first nine months of this year, 3,412, "The public have no idea of the extent or ramifications of this trade; if they had, they would rise in their wrath and demand that action be taken to stop it. The vast majority of these horses are young ones in the prime of life, perfectly healthy and with many vears * January 1, 1945, we

of useful service before them. In fact, they represent some of |the finest types of British horses of all kinds, including quite a number of prize winners at the shows, which go straight from the market to the slaughterhouse. Ina

number of cases they even include mares with their foals, yearlings, two-year-olds and, indeed, horses of all ages and all kinds. "This question was really brought up by one or two farmers in my constituency who wrote to me saying that they were unable to buy horses for hay-mak-ing and their crops were being seriously prejudiced for that reason. It is an industrial district and the farms are more of the hill-top type where it is extremely hard to make ends meet. Farmers could not afford the prices asked at the auction sales. Some Prices "A horse of 12cwt. live weight was fetching in the region of £50 whereas it should now be in the region of £20. It is obvious that farmers in those districts, and people requiring horses for drawing wagons, cannot afford to pay £50: for a horse when, as I say, the Po! price should be in the region of

"A good many resolutions have | recently been sent in by some branches of the National Farmers’ Union, urging that something should be done about this matter. It means that no -horse is now safe in a sale. "The agents go to every sale and literally buy up everything, judging only by what each horse will fetch for meat. They look at the horses from a butcher’s angle, which is quite a new thing. The vast majority of this meat is, of course, sold in the black market-TI should say 80 per cent." Mr. Elwyn Jones (Plaistow): "Is this meat intended for human consumption? Is it used for human consumption when it comes to London?" Mr. Sutcliffe: "The majority of it is destined for human consumption. The truth is that this trade is now in the hands of a small number of men who are making very large profits. Their names and a good many of their activities are well known to the Ministry of Food. They have their own slaughterhouses. Paid. for in Cash "This little band of men has a complete organisation. It is highly organ-

ised and seems to have plenty of motor transport. All transactions, of course, are in cash, no questions are asked and no records are kept. People might begin to make inconvenient inquiries if any records were kept,

and there is always the Inland Revenue in the background. "As the Parliamentary Secretary well knows, there is a Statutory Rule and Order, No. 1862, which was brought out on November 20, 1941, and this fixes the maximum wholesale and retail prices for horseflesh and also insists on the keeping of records. Never has a Statutory Rule and Order been so openly flouted as this one has. "The Ministry’s officers, instead of watching the paltry things such as sales in shops above the maximum price, should give immediate attention to these auction sales. They should attend them and follow the horse-flesh from the hoof right to the retail shops, never letting it out of their sight. "They will have to be determined men and they will have to have their wits about them, because these men are highly organised, and they will take some beating, particularly when one recalls that three skilled men working as a (continued on next page)

SLAUGHTER ‘OF HORSES

(continued from previous page) team can kill a horse, skin it, cut it up, and have the whole thing out of the slaughterhouse, including all the offal and every other part, within 20 minutes of bringirg in the horse alive. . These enforcement officers will have to be quick on the job. .. The country demands immediate action to put an end to this sordid traffic, which is entirely alien to the British people." Reply by Minister Next we quote the reply of the Parliamentary Secretary to the Ministry of Food (Dr, Edith Summerskill): "It may not have occurred to hon. Members that the enforcement of the order_in respect of this commodity is, perhaps, harder than the enforcement of orders in respect of any other commodity with which my Department has to deal; and for this reason housewives who are unfortunate enough to have husbands who have big appetites for meat, go to the places where horse-meat is sold, and if they are overcharged they are a little reluctant to complain, because they are not anxious to have the details of their purchases, and the places where they make them, ventilated in the local papers. "Therefore, while it may be quite easy to get a housewife to give evidence against a. greengrocer who has charged more than the maximum price, it is with the utmost. difficulty that we can persuade witnesses to.come forward to give evidence against these particular people. That is why we find enforcement extremely difficult. Furthermore, the clientele in these shops is rather limited, and the seller of horsemeat knows his customers, We find that, in these cases, when we send an inspector, male or female, to make a purchase, for some curicus reason’ the controlled price is always charged. The seller of the horsemeat suspects that particular customer. "The farming industry of this country is the most highly mechanised in the world, and young farmers are rather apt to despise horses. They have developed a love for tractors, and it is a most difficult thing to persuade these young farmers to use horses on their farms when they are now accustomed to use some kind of mechanical instrument. The Ministry of Agriculture have

assured us that they are making efforts to persuade the farmers to continue the breeding of horses, but we cannot control the slaughter of horses by the farmer or his agents, and the only solution is for the young farmers to breed more horses, We are doing everything in our power to persuade them to do so." But the best comment was this parody by the Manchester Guardian; "Which would you rather eat, child?" asked the Red Queen. "A horse, a dog, or a cat?" "I'd rather not eat any of them; thank you very much," said Alice, "Oh, but you may have to," said the Red Queen briskly. "It’s no use taking a hoity-toity line like that, you knowyou’ve got to move with the times, Don’t you realise that people in this country are now eating so many horses that there is a positive fear that we may run short of them for working pur-poses-a horse in the kitchen is worth two in the stable, child." "All the more reason," said Alice firmly, "why I shouldn’t eat them." "You may have done it without knowing,’ persisted the Red Queen. "There’s more meat goes into the pie than ever came out of a cowshed. And appetite comes with eating, you know." "Well, it wouldn’t in my case," said Alice with a slight. shudder. "Don’t be absurd, child!" was the Red Queen’s rejoinder. "Now I knew a man who became a most confirmed hippophagist, but he began in quite a small way-wouldn’t touch anything to start with except the smallest of Shetland ponies. Then he got on to the New Forest and Dartmoor varieties and worked right up through Percherons and Suffolk Punches to Shires and Clydesdales. Very determined he was; also developed a tremendous taste for everything that began with horse-horse-radish, horse-chestnuts, _horsemushrooms, afid everything like that." "What happened to him in the end?" inquired Alice with some interest. "Oh, bad-very bad!" admitted the Red Queen gloomily. "Hippophagy got such a hold on him that he tried to gnaw the winner of the Derby as it was led in for unsaddling. So they took him away and he was shot. at Lights Out on Horse Guards’ Parade." _ ae