WHY NOT RATION MUTTON?

Dominion, Volume 16, Issue 223, 8 June 1923, Page 5

WHY NOT RATION MUTTON?

Sir. —The expected Wairarapa arrivals of beef calves in the coming spring should total over forty thousand. The farmer has responded to the call for more production, hut unless definite proposals are made to deal with the present surplus of beef, the coming summer (especially if it is a very dry one), will bring a crisis for the beef producer. If any business firm wished to clear its winter drapery stocks for its spring arrivals, the problem would be vigorouly tackled, but though the pastures of Wairarapa will soon bo required to carry thousands more lambs and calves, the farmer sees no means of disposing of his grown cattie. During the war period the Imperial Food Control Bureau issued a weekly communique to abattoirs m Britain stating the P?, rc ® n j avo of meat to be distributed, thus: Overseas meat 50 per cent, mutton 20 per cent, beef 20 per cent., pork 10 per cent., the communique varying each week according to *upplies. To-day we have a New Zealand Meat (Control Board with untested powers; surely if the Imperial machinery proved so efficient in face of an expected famine, similar means might be evoked to avert an imminent glut. Has our Meat Control Board any power to regulate the killings in borough and city abbatoirs to ensure that a greater portion of beef is killed? and if the power is there, how would it be received by the communhas been clearly demonstrated in the Press during the last two months that by eating a larger percentage of beef we should greatly increase the exportable surplus of our two saleable products—mutton and wool. New Zealanders must by now realise that no help is forthcoming from overseas to stabilise our beef market; why not help ourselves? Of course there will be dissenters—faddists who prefer mutton to beef, butchers who make more profit by selling mutton, and the percentage who refuse apparent coercion even though it is in ttle ir own interests. To the farmer s mind these obiections are not insurmountable. If anyone would state the case against mutton rationing 111 your columns. I for one will be very much interested.-! am. efc„ T danieLL “Wairere.” Maaterton, Juno 5, 1923.