The Press SATURDAY, MAY 3, 1941. Meat Restrictions

Press, Volume LXXVII, Issue 23319, 3 May 1941, Page 8

The Press SATURDAY, MAY 3, 1941. Meat Restrictions

In his announcement that the British and New Zealand Governments have completed the current season’s export contract for meat the Minister for Marketing discloses the welcome fact that the British Government has engaged to buy 248,000 tons, or a quantity 68,000 tons larger than was at one stage considered the possible, maximum. It is to be remembered, of course, as the Minister said, that 248,000 tons may not be the quantity actually shipped during the contract period^that is, to the end of September. But although that means that shipping space may not be available to lift so much, and that the problem of congested stores may still be acute as the next season opens, the contract total has almost certainly been raised above the prospective figure because British estimates of shipping schedules have been favourably revised. The explanation can only be guessed at; but the obvious guess is that the release or transfer of American shipping has been rapid enough to improve the situation. The British Government’s practice has been to contract for . specified quantities, while undertaking to buy and lift as much more as possible. Since it seems unlikely that this conservative practice has been abandoned, the inference is that the British shipping control is fairly sure of being able to lift the contract quantity. On that assumption farmers are entitled to take a more hopeful view of the future. So is the Government; so is the public, which could not avoid taking some of the wbight of any loss falling on the export producer. But the most hopeful view possible is not one in which the problem of a meat surplus vanishes, or which sanctions an easy-going policy. The Government has so far blundered, fumbled, and delayed. The chances are that it will have less anxious difficulties to overcame than were recently threatened. But it is' essential that it should develop and announce a policy which will not merely suffice for the' present emergency but be adaptable, on defined principles, to later and possibly worse ones. The proposals of the New Zealand Farmers’ Union, reported on Thursday, at least furnish a useful, basis to work on. Their merits are that they cover all meat available for killing, stress the- need to. forward the greatest quantity ofUseful meat in the minimum space, face the that some stock may have to be dealt with as unmarketable, and suggest no inflationary purchase procedure. Their faults are that' they do not frankly accept the need for. an examination of the basis upon which payment should, be made for meat only provisionally acceptable for export or, not acceptable at all, and in particular that they seem to put upon the Consolidated Fund—i.e., the taxpayer—the burden of the loss on stock that may have dply converter value. , “T ' ■