THE IMPENDING BEEF RISE.

Dominion, Volume 4, Issue 1131, 19 May 1911, Page 8

THE IMPENDING BEEF RISE.

BUTCHERS'. OPINIONS. A .Wellington man in the meat trade thinks that next wc?k' the wholesalers will raise the price of beef by 125. per 10011). "It will (lieu be imperative on the retailers to raise their price in proportion," he says. "Two shillings a. hundred means a farthing a pound. Supposing this rise funics, and tho retailers Rα up a. halfpenny in their price, someone is sure to draw attention to the fact that the retailers want a halfpenny more from the public while they aro only paying a farthing more." As a set-off against that, he continued, the public failed to consider that a good portion of the weight of a carcass of betf was made up by bone, and on that bono the butcher paid the extra farthing a pound, but got nothing extra for the sale of a great proportion of it. He thinks the retail price of beef will go up by a halfpenny a pound very shortly. One butcher (seen yesterday) said that the big demand from the South Island was influencing the wholesale price here. South Island buyers were up this way looking for beef. Ono man's estimate is that the wholesale fprice will bo 255. psr lOOlb. soon. This, he says, is ijot exceptional in comparison with recent winters, but the point is that the retail price will likely keep pace with the wholesale this winter, whereas in the two previous winters the butchers were "selling too cheap." They had been, in. the two periods ..referred to, "(rutting one another out, and it was a. case of survival of the fittest. 1 ' The following. aro the words of a very well-known trad-esman:—"During tho last eighteen months the retail butchers of Wellington have lost, between .£20,000 and to the public through selling, too cheap. Ono firm aitua has lost .€300.1. Others. have lost all they had to lose, and now have, to look for a profit."