ARMY BEEF

Evening Post, Volume CXIII, Issue 55, 7 March 1927, Page 14

ARMY BEEF

THE LOST CONTRACT

ARGENTINE'S LOW BID

IMPERIALISTIC PROTEST

(From Our Own Correspondent.) LOKDON, 26th January.

The War Office canned-meat contract for this year, for supplying a million and a half 12oz tins (net weight) of corned beef, has been awarded to South America, greatly to the disappointment of Australia, which tender ed and was perfectly well able to supply the quantity wanted.

Firms in the Commonwealth of Australia tendered for the order (-which. they were successful in securing' last year), but notwithstanding the preference allowed' failed to get a renewal of the contract this year. It is understood that the War Office accepted the Argentine tender because the price was substantially lower than the price quoted by Australia, even after the preference was allowed. The total value of tinned goods purchased by the War Office in. 1925 was £.73,000, of which 48 per cent, was produced in the British Empire. The total value of frozen meat purchased in the same year was approximately £.800,000. This was entirely of Empire origin except for a few local contracts.

AN AUSTRALIAN'S VIEWS.

Mr. Alex Hassan, late resident representative in Britain of the now defunct. Australian Meat Council, and one of Australia's most active protagonists, in an interview, said that the contract in 1925 was partially supplied by Australia. Last year for the first time the Commonwealth secured the whole contract, and he believed that both as to delivery and quality the Australian firms gave entire satisfaction. The contract was open to any country, and this year—immediately after the Imperial Conference, and the industrious use o"f the slogans "Buy British Goods," "British Goods for British Poeple," and the efforts of the Empire Marketing Board —the contracts for food for the British troops have been awarded by the Imperial Government to a foreign country. What the value of this year's contract was he could not say, but it would be somewhere in the neighbourhood of from £40,000 to £45,000. "Australian producers of beef are disappointed, and rightly so," said Mr. Hassan. "Our competitors are not to be blamed. The present contract, however, has been given at a dumping price, the contractors hoping that further trade at better prices will follow. How can the Empire feed itself from its own resources if the Imperial production of-beef is discouraged in this fashion?"

In official Australian quarters it was recognised that a limit must be drawn somewhere in the recognition, of price variations in contracts, and every confidence was expressed that the Contracts Department of the War Office had a good and sufficient reason for their decision. The opinion was expressed that as Australia had gradually improved its position to the point of securing the whole contract in 1926, the opposing interests might have felt it incumbent to make a very strong bid to recapture the market, and owing to the large scale of their operations, they would be in a stronger position to quote an exceptionally low price.

THE SUCCESSFUL FIRM.

It is understood that the firm to whom the order has been given are Messrs. AY. Weddel and Co., Limited, moat and produce importers, whose head ofliee in this country is in West Smithfield. The meat will be prepared at tho. new works of Messrs. Weddel, the iVigorifico Anglo at Buenos Aires, which were opened only a fortnight ago, and which are the largest meat works in the world.

The position of tho War Office, it is understood, is that tho Argentine tender was so much lower than that of Australia that commercial considerations were bound to override the natural desire to award the contract within tho Empire. Actually the War Oflico Contracts Department, in common with other departments, has a certain percentage margin allowed in favour of Empire tenders, but if this percentage is exceeded to any substantial extent over another and equally suitablo tender from a non-Empiro source, tho lower tender must secure the contract. Tho position of Empiro produce in regard' to Army contracts is that in 1925 the total order of the War Office for tinned goods was about £73,000, and of that total 48 per cent, went to British Empire products. The frozen meat purchases in 1925, the last year for which the total figures are available, amounted to £800,000, and the whole of this sum was spent within the Empire. 85, Fleet street.