IMPORTED LAMB AND MUTTON

Press, Volume LXXIV, Issue 22597, 30 December 1938, Page 9

IMPORTED LAMB AND MUTTON

British Licensing Scheme I

ACCEPTANCE BY N.Z. AND AUSTRALIA

{united phess ASSOCIATION—COPYRIGHT.) (Received December 29, 12.25 p.m.) LONDON, December 28. The Australian Associated Press states that the Empire Beef Council: will start next week on the preliminary steps of a licensing scheme for the regulation of mutton and lamb imports from the Dominions on the lines of the Government’s decision of December 20. It is-.ex-pected that the scheme will "begin early in January.

It is. learned that Australia and New Zealand have accepted the new policy, though New Zealand, at first raised strong objections. Britain finally declared that restrictions were becoming so essential that she would be obliged to institute them with or without the Dominions’ agreement.

Replying to claims that foreign imports could be restricted before the limitation of Dominion products, Britain pointed out that although the Ottawa agreement fixed the foreign quota at 35 per cent, the Dominions were supplying 80 per cent. An important aspect of the Government’s new policy is the retention of the Beef Council, not only to control imports, but also to investigate the possibilities of increasing meat consumption at home and abroad.

There is little doubt that control was necessitated to a large degree by the success of New Zealand’s publicity, which resulted in housewives asking for frozen mutton and lamb instead of fresh United Kingdom products.