PRICE OF THINGS

Evening Post, Volume CXXXIV, Issue 145, 16 December 1942, Page 5

PRICE OF THINGS

INDIGNANT WOMEN

DUMPING OF FOOD

Indignation was expressed cogently, often forcefully, and sometimes humorously by Wellington women at a meeting held yesterday in the demonstration hall of the Gas Company to discuss high prices, shortages, and methods of marketing and distribution of essential food supplies.

The hall was crowded to the doors. The meeting was called by the Women's Service Guild (Incorp.). Mrs. John Henderson presided. The proceedings were conducted in a thoroughly busi-ness-like way and lasted two and a half hours. The speeches were confined to facts and experiences. Mrs. Henderson, opening the proceedings, acknowledged their duty to the country and war service but she stressed the duty also to those on the home front—the women and children the fighting men had left behind them. What would the men say when they came back, she asked, when they found their children suffering from malnutrition as a result of the high prices and scarcity of necessary foodstuffs? n ,' .. Mrs. J. P. Anderson, who had been, in close touch with the body of women in Auckland, stirring up public opinion on this matter, referred to child-, ren deprived of vital foodstuffs on account of high prices, and yet such food had been held back and allowed to waste. The people were urged _^ to waste nothing and they had made a splendid response; but there was waste of food going on north and south; food denied to people (except at excessive prices) yet allowed to be dumped rather than sold. Lorry loads of potatoes were dumped at Blenheim and Panmure. Instances were given of onions being sold at 6d for two, while onions were allowed to rot, and or, potatoes gathered from a suburban dump being planted as seed; also of fruit sent in from farms forssale, but not permitted to be sold, yet being dumped. . _ Miss Watson (Women's Social Progress League) dealt with sugar, which, she said, was not dear but scarce—and the jam season was coming on. She quoted from the Year Book to show that for 1939-40 brewing requirements ! accounted for 58,000 bags of sugar, and for 1941-42 this quantity was increased to 83,000 bags. "Is it lmposi sible to ration beer?" she asked.. i Mrs. T. B. Strong said that in returning from England she found the \ people of New Zealand discontented with the price of things and the profiteering rackets. The people of Great Britain were rationed, and this was capably done. There were no complaints, and the authorities, through the Press, gave the people their confidence. Everyone had enough. Mrs. Strong went into figures as to carrots, showing that while the official price was £24 a ton, at the price they were sold they worked out at [ £187 a ton. "Who, ~v the difference? It i wasn't the grower, she said;

"BOARDS, BOARDS, BOARDS."

' Mrs. D. C. Bates began: "Fellowvoters!" But there were cries of no politics." Mrs. Bates criticised costly distribution as a cause of high prices. "Boards and boards and boards," she said, "resulting in 'luxury' prices for fruit and vegetables. Do we need it? she asked, specifying the Internal ! Marketing Department. (Cries of '"No, no.") Waste was going on and must be eliminated. " . Mrs. Jordan (women's section. Farm-, ers' Union) emphasised the "surplus in- the country and the waste in the shops." She described Seeing vegetables in shops at Petone, wilted, brown, unsaleable. These ! would be replaced next day by fresh goods and therefore would inevitably be wasted. She also referred to plenty of eggs being available in Masterton and Palmerston North, when none were obtainable in, Wellington. /-.,-, Mrs. Greenberg dealt with fish and eggs and the extreme scarcity in Wellington of foods, especially eggs, essential for children and invalids. .Regulations tended to restrict production. ,' Mrs. Murray said there was a nigger in the wood pile." It was the marketing system—"a wonderful system." but all one-sided, being composed of men. She urged the need of a practical woman on the Marketing Board and on the Price Tribunal, too. (Great applause.) It was a ridiculous system that required an egg producer in the Hutt Valley to send his eggs into Wellington and to buy them back again to sell in the Hutt Valley. It was time women took a nana .in* this marketing. She advocated district market places where producers could sell to consumers direct and the svu> plus afterwards auctioned and what (if any) goods were left over distributed to institutions. AW T Mrs. E. McGqwan (president, Wei* lington Housewives' Union) said « was realised that they were all .agreed' that something was wrong with the marketing of fruit and vegetables, eggs and other things; but they should haye ( something concrete before them, bne^ suggested the formation of a Plan-* nine committee representative of/the. Government, producers, military^ authorities, and women membersj Things had got into such a muddl« because they>cked the co-wegtwg of women. Equipment, seeds, fert^J isers should be organised. Lands nou| lying idle should be procured for culj tivation. There was great work fog. women to do in the Army cookhouse! to prevent waste there. :,-.&j "CRUEL AND GRINDING.* *$j Other speakers described their tag ability to secure vegetables soldl a» auction, even when bidding the high^ est price; some alleged collusion between selling firms and the big buyers, "A farmer's daughter," as one lady described herself made a deep impression on the meeting with her impassioned criticism of present marketing conditions. "We didn't have it in the last war—this burdensome, cruel, and. grinding thing. Why now? she said. "These men are a burden on us. J->et us get rid of them." One laay suggested a parade of women in the streets bearing placards. Another pleaded for the interests of old people as well as children. Yet another suggested: "Boycott the shops. Don't pay the prices. Say 'No, thank you,' and walk out. Beat them at their own game."

Many complaints went round of ex-« cessive prices and waste of foods held back for high prices. Subsequently the president, at the conclusion of a full and frank discussion, referred to a deputation of women to the Minister of Marketing on the high prices and kindred matters just discussed. The deputation was courteously received, but at the Minister's suggestion the Press was not present, therefore she could not and would not disclose what took place. The meeting resolved unanimously to urge the Prime Minister and Minister of Marketing to "take immediate steps to reduce the expensive gap between producer and consumer by eliminating the present duplication of. the Internal Marketing Department and the wholesale auctioneering firms." "

The necessity of permitting keepers of poultry up to 50 head to dispose of the eggs to private customers and retail shops was stressed; and making' available supplies of eggs easily accessible to the public, after meeting military, hospital, and other similar requirements, also prohibiting the serving of more than two eggs to one person at a meal served in restaurants, hotels, and similar places. Lastly, the meeting passed with applause "That ia the event of any glut of commodities immediate steps shall be taken to dispose of the surplus to various institutions, and that it shall be a penal offence to waste or destroy edible commodities that are fit for human consumption."