GIVEN THE ENTREE.

Auckland Star, Volume L, Issue 223, 19 September 1919, Page 7

GIVEN THE ENTREE.

BACON FROM AUSTRALIA. FREE (TRADE FOE FIVE WEEKS. Since the war started the pi;* has been as much in the "spot light" as the most spoilt favourite of the theatre or the footlights. Xo doubt he continues to wallow and grunt unconcernedly in his lowly and not over-clean habitation, but the trouble is that the guttural (or is it nasal?) chorus is getting so faint that people ■will either have to change their tastes for {he matutinal meal altogether or save up for a "bacon day" once a week or perhaps not so often. The latest attempt to reir.ove the reproach of the empty breakfast plate is a declaration of free trade in bacon and hams imported from Australia, the impost at present being 2d. per pound. The Government lias decided to lift the duty from September 22nd until November Ist- It does not matter whether the bacon is the produce of Australia or not. it will he freely welcrmied as long as it is shipped from the Ccvimonwealth. Tn New Zealand we are between the Seasons as far as the pig and its concomitants are concerned. We should have started killing, "out porkers are few and far between. What with milk factories and the demand for lactial food for calves the one-time favourite of the skim-milk pail now takes second place. Moreover, it is claimed liy the curers that the price at the factory as iixed by the Government (one shilling and a penny halfpenny per pound) is not enough to leave sufficient margin of profit. The retail prices are 1/ a pountl for boiling cuts. 1/6 for prime cuts, and 1/7 for the fast disappearing rasher. This declaration of free tra.U- with Australia was re-sorted to once before. several .war* aa"o. when we had a shortage, but from inquiries male in Auckland ths morning 'by a "Star" reporter, it does not look as though the position will be much relieved this year. Bacon in Australia is also a rare delicacy, and importers say they are very doubtful whether the Australian shippers could profitably cent it across the Taeman Sea at the present prices ruling in New Zealand. The latest advice a well-known firm in Auckland has received is that the selling price of bacon in Australia is 1/1J per Ib. to which freight ami insurance have to be added here, bringing the cost to about 1/2 per lb landed in Xew Zealand, white the Government's fixed price at the factory is 1/n. The decision to admit bacon from Australia, whether the produce of that cnun-l try or not. will cause qualms to men; who were in Egypt, and struggled with: the "lance-corporal" (meaning one stripe of lean) bacon which was O nj wsue. the place of origin being America. It has evidently ! been cured with equal parts of cheap saltpetre, alum, and! plaster of Paris. J t was similar to tiiej stuff they were getting- in England, the stuff whose amazing qualities gained for it the distinction of being embalmed in the pages of "Punch." In Egypt the •wise colonial never ate his bacon ration. Egypt being a land of fowls he certainly had bacon and eggs, .but he used the bacon under the frying pan, not in it. This was clearly a breach of Army regulations, but the impossibility of obtaining firewood in a woodless country, and the impossibility of consuming the bacon were such a convenient coincidence—as Kipling's friend Xamgav Dnola remarks, '"What else \va? there to do with it?"