LAMB IN BRITAIN

Evening Post, Volume CXXV, Issue 80, 5 April 1938, Page 14

LAMB IN BRITAIN

IMPORTS RESENTED

SCOTTISH FARMERS PROTEST

(From "The Post's" Representative.) LONDON, March 19. Protests are being made in Scotland against the depression in mutton and lamb prices, which, it is''claimed, has been accentuated by increased imports from Australia and New Zealand.

It is stated that fat sheep bought last autumn are now being sold at a loss of £1 a head and not more than 20 per cent, are realising the original cost. Deputations of Scottish farming organisations have " interviewed the Secretary of State for Scotland seeking a remedy. "The cause of the depression is the large excess of imports from Australia and New Zealand, amounting to an equivalent of fully 1,300,000 head for the year 1937," says "The Scotsman" in discussing the matter. "At the same time the increase in home production was 534,000, and even allowing that only half of that increase was marketable it gives a total excess of supply of fully 1,500,000 sheep and lambs as compared with 1936.

"It appears that the higher prices for mutton and lamb ruling in the first half of 1937 induced those in charge of the regulation of imports to grant a considerably increased export from Australia and New Zealand, in the belief that the better state of the home market would permit the absorption of that increase without any severe price depression. The trouble appears to be that the actual price depression occurred about the same.time as those increased imports reached the market. It is obvious that the system of regulation does, not operate sufficiently quickly to prevent .market fluctuations, and it is felt, that a more frequent and regular system should be adopted in order to secure market stability."