HORSE MEAT.

Press, Volume LII, Issue 15612, 9 June 1916, Page 5

HORSE MEAT.

A QUEENSLAND MOVEMENT,

(raou orra own correspondent.) SYDNEY, May 31. Notwithstanding the apparent opposition of the Federal authorities, who are said to be actuated mainly by a desire not to have Australia advertised as a country where the flesh of the horse ia regarded as an article of food, people in Queensland are persevering with their idea of using up horses to meet tho present exceptional demand for meat by slaughtering horses, not for consumption, of the meat here, but for export to European countries, where, as Australians put it, "folks don r t mincl eating horse." It is put also that as the result _of_ the war, the people of some of Britain's European allies would bo very grateful for supplies of horseflesh to tide them over a scarcity which compels many to do without a taste of meat for a week or longer a t a stretch. Such a deprivation seems a truly calamitous thing to Australians, whose meat-eating proclivities are known everywhere. _The State Government of Queensland has come to the support of the private would-be exporters of horse meat, and is "trying to wear down the aversion of Federal Ministere Replying to recent statements by the Minister for Customs, the Acting-Premier of Queensland, Mr Hunter, says that there are in Queensland a great many horses which have been rejected as remounts, are not wanted as saddle or harness animals, and* are in effect nothing %ut wasters, which eat grass that would be very valuable for other stock. ■Mr Hunter makes it known, too, that the Queensland Government has been approached front several Continental quarters to sefiHf some of the unwanted horses could not bo made available as food for the armies of Allies to whom horse meat is acceptable and customary food.