FOOD IN AUSTRALIA

Evening Post, Volume LXXXIX, Issue 148, 24 June 1915, Page 6

FOOD IN AUSTRALIA

MEAT AND BUTTER PRICES. (FROM OUII OWN CORhESPONbENt.) SYDNEY, ISth June. At tho way things are going it Becrns that very soon only the rich will be able to > afford to eat meat and butter. Supplies a.re weekly becoming smaller and prices are climbing tip all tho time. Matters ceem to be particularly bad in New South Wales, where far more had been done than anywhere eioe in the matter of regulation of prices. /The Sydney suburban nousewifc has to pay to-day up to &d a pound for mutton of only moderate quality. Everybody in the, meat business saj'3 tlvat tho outlook promises only higher prices still. Attention has been drawn to the disquieting fact that females have made up quite 40 per cent, of the live stock slaughterer! during the past" throe months in the metropolitan area, and the proportion is said to be much greater in country places. This very heavy killing of stock that io badly needed for building up flocks a.nd herds after the devastation wrought by the recent drought ir, causing much alarm, and_ the Government has felt obliged to give the assurance that no time will be lost itv framing legislative restrictions on the slaughtering of female stock. The price of buiter is' fixed by Government _ regulation, but the Government cannot increase ths supply, which is altogether ihsliflicienii Householders are joining in the -request that the proclaimed pricts be reduced in order to allow dealers sellitig butter imported from America and elsewhere at some margin of profit.