The Dominion. MONDAY, FEBRUARY 14, 1944. RATIONING AND SUPPLIES

Dominion, Volume 37, Issue 118, 14 February 1944, Page 4

The Dominion. MONDAY, FEBRUARY 14, 1944. RATIONING AND SUPPLIES

There is one overriding factor, when the production, marketing and rationing of foodstuffs come under consideration. Action here must be guided largely by the requirements of the United Kingdom, and the purpose of restricting local consumption is to enable larger quantities to be sent overseas. That is so generally recognized that it has enabled rationing to be applied with very little difficulty. People realize that the principle of sharing cannot be limited' to any one country, and that the unity demonstrated in the fighting zones is equally necessary in the matter of the distribution of foodstuffs and raw materials. Only in that way could the maximum effort be made. The requirements of the Mother Country have changed from time to time, and this has involved major adjustments in farming practices and factory methods in New Zealand, and they were made so efficiently that possibly their extent and all that was involved have not been fully realized by the community. The first to be affected were the dairy-farmers, and the change-over from butter to cheese production was rapidly and successfully completed. It involved the allied interests of. pig-raising and limited the number of calves a farmer could retain. There were also several changes in the preference for pigs. Then came the necessity for the industry to revert to the maximum production of butter, and that, too, has been successfully accomplished. This season the sheep-farmer was asked to vary his practice. Previously the demand was for the lightweight carcase of quality in-order that as many as possible might be shipped in the refrigerated space available. Today the demand is for heavier weights as the need is for quantity, and the sheep-farmer’s task is to make that change without sacrificing quality. The latest development is the pending rationing of the domestic meat supply, again with the sole purpose of increasing the quantity that can be sent to Britain, and it may involve important changes in the farming practice of those who had usually directed their efforts, to supplying local markets with prime beef. The most difficult period is in the late winter and early spring, for it requires both added labour and increased expenditure to carry the stock through the hard months and market them in prime condition. The position disclosed last winter emphasized that difficulty. It remains to be seen if any practical plan can be evolved whereby producers, specializing in the production of prime beef in the period when supplies are invariably short, can be adequately recompensed for their extra labour and expense. . If not then they, in turn, will have to adjust their established practice, probably by carrying their stock through the winter in good condition and then topping them off in early summer for the export market. That course, in all likelihood, would result in a marked shortage of prime beef in the Dominion for a limited period, but there will be alternative supplies of meat that can be used, and any domestic inconvenience will not count provided the quantities sent to the Mother Country can be maintained and, if possible, increased. These are all matters, of adjustment inseparable from wartime conditions, but it must be the constant endeavour of the authorities so to direct control that/the changes do not impose undue hardship on any section.. The purpose of rationing meat, for instance, is not to depress the prices of stock but to deflect supplies from the domestic to the overseas markets. Decisions must be made in the light of those factors, for the Dominion is pledged to supply all it can to meet the urgent needs of the people of the United Kingdom and also to ensure that the cost of that effort shall be on a national and not a sectional basis.