AUCKLAND DECISIONS

Evening Post, Volume CXL, Issue 62, 11 September 1945, Page 8

AUCKLAND DECISIONS

RECOMMENDATIONS MADE P.A. AUCKLAND, September 10. No further action is to be taken by the Auckland master butchers regarding high prices for stock until proposals decided upon by a meeting held tonight have been considered by the Dominion Council of Master Butchers and the Government. A resolution was carried recommending the Dominion Council to advise the Government that the master butchers would be willing to absorb the losses incurred through present high prices of stock, provided the Government would agree to the seasonal increases in the retail prices being maintained long enough to enable those losses to be recovered. If this could not be agreed to the meeting decided that, provided all other means to obtain a subsidy sufficient to make the selling price of meat satisfactory had first been exhaused, a committee should be set up by the Dominion Council-to give effect to a remit which the council had already approved, agreeing to confer with the Government to try to arrange for wholesale buying prices to be adjusted from month to month. After considering a suggestion made by the Government, the meeting decided that frozen meat was not suitable for selling locally. The only Government stocks available were American untrimmed packs, cut in eights, which could not be sold on the local market because of the standards and specifications required under the price orders. OPEN SHOPS, NO SALES P.A. WHANGAREI, September 10. Northland butchers decided this afternoon to endorse the action of the executive in its demand to the Government for an increase of 2d a pound on all meat sold through their shops. They also decided that no meat should be offered for sale until a satisfactory arrangement had been made. Shops will ibe opened, but no meat sold till further notice. Replying to a question by the New Zealand Master Butchers' Association, the meeting decided that unless a settlement was reached by next Friday butchers throughout the Dominion should be asked to fall into line with Northland and offer no meat till a settlement is reached. "NOT RECEIVING FAIR DEAL" P.A. NEW PLYMOUTH, Sept. 10. The trade and profits of butchers were considered at a meeting of the Taranaki Master Butchers' Association at Stratford tonight. The question of obtaining permission to increase the retail prices of meat was particularly discussed. Members expressed a desire to have their representations presented in a constitutional manner, but it was stated that they were not receiving a fair deal, and they felt the time might come when after all avenues of representation had failed, they would be compelled in self-protection to consider what steps should be taken to avoid financial chaos.

COSTS NOW AND IN 1939 P.A. PALMERSTON N., Sept. 10. The Manawatu and Southern Hawke's Bay butchers adopted a resolution today in favour of a buying schedule for meat being brought into operation. They stated that they were not prepared to stock frozen meats. They are also asking the Government to examine the cost^>f retailing and distributing meat at present, compared with 1939, and that the difference should be paid butchers by way of subsidy. Further, in the event of no increase 'being made in the subsidy, the shops should be closed until the demands are met. Another motion asks for the restrictions on the sale of pork to be lifted.