HIGHER MEAT PRICES

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXXVI, Issue 23479, 17 October 1939, Page 6

HIGHER MEAT PRICES

Price fixing is one of the most difficult administrative tasks that can be tackled by any Government and troubles that are likely to be experienced in New Zealand in this respect have been strikingly illustrated by the manner in which retail prices for beef and mutton in Auckland have recently been advanced. The master butchers made their announcement regarding the increase apparently on their own initiative and that they did not act unreasonably has since been shown in the acceptance of their advanced rates by the Food Controller, Mr. F. R. Picot. The facts as now admitted are that Auckland butchers were selling at a temporarily uneconomic price prior to September 1 in anticipation of an early fall on the fat stock market. That fall did not materialise, and by Government decree, issued on the outbreak of war, retail prices could not be increased without tho express approval of the Price Investigation Tribunal. For six weeks, therefore, the local meat trade has been •involved in fairly considerable losses, and, in spite of Mr. Picot's assertion that the Price Tribunal has now approved of the adjustments, it does seem that the period over which losses were incurred was unnecessarily prolonged. But the matter does not stop there. Retail butchers are not the only class handicapped-by bureaucratic control of prices under a scheme widely divorced from tho actualities of trade. All those engaged in the marketing of goods subject to seasonal price variations or to rising in value as a result of war conditions overseas are in a quandary from which there appears to be no prospect of escape. If the Government could realise tho necessity of approaching the problem of local production from the angle of costs rather than prices it could well afford to be more reasonable in the matter of retail rates for other goods. As it is, artificial standards are only being accentuated and in the long run it is the consuming public that wj.ll suffer,.