Article image
Article image
Article image
Article image
Article image
Article image
Article image
Article image
Article image
Article image
Article image
Article image
Article image
Article image
Article image
Article image
Article image
Article image

HOUSEWIVES SHOW POWER TO STEADY MEAT PRICE

LONDON LETTER

[By

K. W. McCOOK

London Correspondent of "The Press”]

London, July 9.—A sign of the times for the last fortnight was the large notices that appeared in butchers shops in London and the suburbs. On the eve of the end of meat rationing, customers were thanked in fulsome phrases for their “patience and forbearance during our years of difficulty and were asked for “the continued favour of your esteemed patronage m the more bountiful days ahead?’ Whether these flowery sentiments caused shoppers to forgive their suppliers their “take-it-or-leave-it attitude of the last 14 years of rationing is not known, but housewives soon showed the restored power of their purses in bringing traders and retailers to heel when meat prices started rocketing at Smithfield Markets. Hopeful forecasts that prices would be slightly higher for beter grades of meat went by the board as traders and butchers rushed the market on “Freedom Day.” The wholesale prices wrecked all existing calculations as a “free-for-all” developed in Smithfield’s eight acres. Prices of lamb chops jumped from 3s 4d to 4s 4d wholesale, and English legs of lamb from 3s 4d to 4s Bd. Some cuts of steak almost doubled to more than 6s per lb wholesale.

On the second day of freedom, there was little of the frantic buying of FDay and many traders wore worried frowns. English lamb was still near 5s per lb, while rump steak cost 6s, but the housewives’ boycott was growing and many suburban butchers refused to buy in the market. To keep their customers happy, several large butcher chain stores announced that they would sell at cost price and take a loss until the meat market settled down. Other butchers in poorer districts refused to buy at all and closed down their shops for the day. After four days, the purse strings had tightened so much that English and Scottish mutton, which sold for 2s 2s per lb wholesale under control and which had risen Is per lb on Freedom Day was down to Is 6d and Is 9d per lb. Then came the news that at Britain’s biggest cattle market at Banbury, on-the-hoof prices had tumbled as farmers rushed stock in to take advantage of the high prices. New Zealand lamb, which was part of the 50,000 tons of imported meat the Ministry of Food had released to traders from its bulk contract stocks, remained steady throughout the week and was selling well at from 2s 8d to 3s 4d per lb. By the end of the week, worried butchers were telling housewives that prices would be steady in a fortnight. Newspapers consoled others, who thought 6s per lb too much for steak, by reporting that it cost 8s 6d in Paris, 8s 4d in Rome and 10s in Geneva. But housewives had seen for themselves how their boycott had broken the sudden jump in prices. Their sales resistance was a warning to traders and producers who had thoughts of cashing in quickly now that price control has disappeared from the meat market. Tractor King’s New Inventions The announcement that the 69-year-old millionaire, Mr Harry Ferguson, was to retire from his tractor business to develop some of his new inventions, has started rumours that he will soon be challenging the major motor-car companies in a “baby car war.” On his, 1000 acre estate at Stow-in-the-Wold, Mr Ferguson is secretly testing a revolutionary new car which he hopes will go into production within the next two years. Rumours of the new car have already reached the technical motoring magazines. It is said to be powered with an air-cooled rear engine and to include a four wheel-drive and a new simple type of transmission which obviates gear changing. Mr Ferguson has promised farmers that he will give them “low cost transport for themselves' and their goods over goodroads, bad roads, and over their land.” To concentrate all his resources on his “farmer’s car,” Mr Ferguson has retired from the Massey-Harris-Fer-guson combine, which he joined last year. He is said to have sold his interest in the business for more than £5,000,000.

If Mr Ferguson does go into the car business, the other companies are sure to have a fight on their hands. Since he successfully pioneered his system of direct hydraulic linkage between tractor and implement, he has been a power in the agricultural machinery world. He formerly had an agreement with Henry Ford to produce his tractors in America; and when this agreement was broken by Ford’s grandson after the war, he promptly sued the American company for £122;000.000 for infringing patent rights. Mr Ferguson later settled his claim for £3,300,000. At present Mr Ferguson has no facilities in Britain for making cars, and ms tractors have always been made under licence; but he is negotiating with several car companies for production facilities. If his “farmer’s car” is successful, there is every prospect of great changes in the light car market m Britain. Civil Defence Debate To many members of the House of Commons, the fight to raise their pay

to £ 1500 a year seems to be 1 important than the plans to cm e their country against atomic a?! 4 That is the conclusion drawn bv Sr political commentators this wwJ J® l -" the Civil Defence estimates wJ 1 ? 1 bated in Parliament. e Sir David Maxwell Fyfe the W Secretary, outlined the vital rescue and civil defence wort , M « thinly-attended house. At time. „ I 100 of the 625 members of the ’ mons were present; and in ' 5 ing hours of the debate onlv -b* 30 members stayed on to hear °? debate. A few weeks ago .A 11 440 members had answered’ 0 ? division bells when the free .. taken on their pay. le w 4 > Members who missed the deh., missed a harrowing story of theX? • ated devastation of the new H iXIE.' m Sir David Maxwell Fyfe revealed of* " with latest model bombs about I times as powerful as the Hiroihu™ ! model, the radius of damage » be 10 times as great. There w2 a be an inner area of total destruS L covering a radius of five mil« ? serious damage would be extendJ S over a seven and a half mile radio? while lighter damage would smS out to 15 miles. spread . "Even as far as the fringe of th. damage (15 miles) the heat Slash mg start fires, and people caught in th ’ open will be in danger of bein. I burned,” said the Minister. “That S A the magnitude of the danger we miehflfl have to face from a single bomb Th, loss of life, the suffering and material losses would constitute a tracwb without parallel in history and enM a catastrophic drop of the standard of civilisation, which would reoni~ ■ decades to restore.” To meet the increased threat Par- J liament had to plan and act with increased vigour, he continued. Snms 600,000 persons were already enrolled in some form of civil defence but the Civil Defence Corps was still short I of volunteers. Mobile columns were If being organised and the area siren >| warning system, which was dis. it mantled after the war, was being re- k stored. Most sirens had already been ■ replaced. Although the Opposition front- „ bencher, Mr Chuter Ede, promised that the Labour Party would do all Hj it could to help the Government prepare plans for civil defence, backbenchers on both sides of the House complained that not enough action had been taken. They said some controllers of mobile columns were only part-time workers, and that the Government was avoiding taking large decisions. Mr John Strachey said that the £30,000.000 a year being spent on civil defence was a mere pittance and the Cabinet would have to decide whether it was to be taken seriously. From the number of members whop were present at the debate, it was also doubtful whether members take civil defence very seriously. Trouble at the Tower One of the first places overseas visitors head for in London after they have seen Buckingham Palace is the Tower of London. There, in the strongly-guarded Wakefield Tower, the Crown Jewels and Regalia can be seen in all their magnificent dazzling splendour. But many overseas visitors who have travelled thousands of miles to see Britain’s historic sights never catch a glimpse of the famous jewels. Most visitors, and particularly Americans, are on .conducted tours, keeping to a strict timetable; and when they get to the Tower they find queues waiting for an hour or more to see the jewels. According to the guides, the trouble is that many parties of school children from London and the provinces defr cend in the summer tourist season on the Tower for their end-of-term outings. “Sometimes more than 40W children pass through the jewel room in a day,” said one guide. “Most ol them are too young to appreciate or care about the jewels and could not care two hoots about them.” The Minister of Works is to be asked by a group of members of Parliament whether he will consider mov. ing the Crown Jewels to a more convenient place. Schools will probably be asked to spread their visits over the year, instead of concentrating on the summer tourist season. Books for Burning A hopeful last-minute appeal tc housewives not to make any ritual burning of their ration books, but to put them out for paper salvage was made by the Ministry of Materials the day before meat rationing ended. Although the discipline of 14 years of orders and instructions about the books might have got some response from dutiful housewives, many others probably heeded the exhortations of members of Parliament and butchers to burn the books as a celebration of the freeing of meat. At the home of Lord Woolton, the war-time Minister of Food and originator of the rationing system, tne books went on the fire; but Mrs Lloyd George, wife of the present Minister of Food, told reporters that she had placed her family’s books away as souvenirs. Some butchers persuaded customers to hand over their books so that they could light small bonfires in their shops.

This article text was automatically generated and may include errors. View the full page to see article in its original form.
Permanent link to this item

https://paperspast.natlib.govt.nz/newspapers/CHP19540717.2.75

Bibliographic details

Press, Volume XC, Issue 27404, 17 July 1954, Page 6

Word Count
1,699

HOUSEWIVES SHOW POWER TO STEADY MEAT PRICE Press, Volume XC, Issue 27404, 17 July 1954, Page 6

HOUSEWIVES SHOW POWER TO STEADY MEAT PRICE Press, Volume XC, Issue 27404, 17 July 1954, Page 6