FISH AND DIET

Evening Post, Volume CXXXV, Issue 128, 1 June 1943, Page 4

FISH AND DIET

Sir, —Your correspondent "Housewife" in last Saturday's edition of "The Post" asks why .the price of fish is high and why some of the fish shops are closed. The reply is that the catch now coming into the port of Wellington is only about one-half of what it is normally, and that up till recently the auction system operating on this condition of short supply inflated prices. Prior to the diversion of two large trawlers to the Naval Service the catch of the Wellington fishing fleet was approximately 2000 tons a year. Of this tonnage the two trawlers mentioned brought in. 1200 tons. If a catch of 200U tons is required to provide a livelihood for from 50 to 60 retailers, some of them must fade out, because they are superfluous when the catch drops to 1000 tons. In addition, some of the Italian fishmongers have been man-powered into vegetablegrowing.

This disposes of your correspondent's first point. Her second is that in England the value of fish in diet is realised, so that "everyone can get a reasonable supply at a reasonable price." As to this, it was interesting to read in the same edition of your journal the London cablegram reporting a Magistrate's decision to fine Grosvenor House, the Park Lane luxury hotel, where evidently rich parasites have been disporting themselves, £500, and to send to gaol the hotel's buyer and assistant catering manager for obtaining 60001b of fish more tnan they were entitled to in the month of February. After stating that he would send the company owning the hotel to prison if he could, the Magistrate went on: "The ordinary citizen is lucky if he gets any fish, and what he gets,is usually what, before the war, would not have been considered fit for human consumption." I can only conclude that your anonymous correspondent is better informed about fish in the Old Country than the London Magistrate.—l am, etc., JAMES THORN.