Traders Against Meat Control

Press, Volume CIV, Issue 30737, 29 April 1965, Page 19

Traders Against Meat Control

(Special Correspondent N.Z.P.AJ

LONDON, April 27.

The idea of a meat marketing commission, approved in principle by the Government but plans for which are still confidential, is “not necessary,” the National Federation of Meat Traders’ Association was told by Mr K. N. H. Clements, its president, at its Bournemouth conference.

He said a commission would raise the prices of meat. It had been estimated that its cost would be up to £2 million a year, raised by levies on meat This could not possibly mean lower prices. The free market system had worked well in the 10 years since decontrol. He warned housewives that a return to control—which is threatened in the reserve powers proposed for the commission—would drag them, into a “world of conflict irritation, and frustration.”

Whatever kind of commission was formed it would be administered, said Mr Clements, by the dead hand of civil servants with little experience of the trade or its problems. Against Control

“We most strongly disagree that a producer-board or trading commission, or an authority, is necessary. We consider a commission of authority would be contrary to the consumer interest We are emphatically against control of any sort,” he said. If a commission was set up the meat traders’ policy should not be destructive. They should use their influence to see that it favoured the public interest and the interests of the trade which served the public. Mr Clements also warned that competition for world supplies of meat was getting stiffer, and prices were continually moving upwards.

“The public has to understand what we are up against. In addition to the upward movement of world prices, we traders find that our own costs are increasing.”

He pointed out that, even so, meat was available to the British housewife at less cost than almost anywhere else. Meat prices in Britain had trebled in the last 25 years, but the price of almost everything else had increased five times.

Mr Clements said that European buyers could come to Britain, pay top prices at auctions, and still make a good profit. “These Continental buyers are still invading our markets.”

A resolution calling the Government’s attention to the “increasing danger” of exports of cattle and cows in calf, depleting home beef supplies, was passed unanimously.