AGENTS TO CONTINUE AUCTION SALES: BUTCHERS’ DECISION

Greymouth Evening Star, 25 February 1948, Page 3

AGENTS TO CONTINUE AUCTION SALES: BUTCHERS’ DECISION

(P.A.) CHRISTCHURCH, This Day.

Although the Canterbury Master Butchers’ ■ Association has. decided that butchers will not buy livestock at auction after today, the North Canterbury Stock and Station Agents’ Association proposes to. bring stock' forward each week for the Addington market. In a statement issued yesterday, the president of the association (Mr G. D. Wise) said: Our association has given most careful consideration to the butchers’ complaints about the high price at whidh they have to buy their meat wholesale, and; while at the moment we are endeavouring to get the Government to give the butchers some assistance in other directions, it is greatly to be regretted' that the Master Butchers’ Association has. decided to refrain from purchasing in Addington after today’s market. “We feel that the distribution of fat stock through Addington market is the only method that will ensure regular supplies of fresh meat to the Christchurch public, and we propose bringing forward sufficient fat stock every Wednesday to supply, through butchers, the public of Christchurch with meat, if the butchers themselves will purchase it through the normal auction channels.” A Timaru message states that when the decision of the Canterbury Master Butchers’ Association to refrain from buying further stock at auction was referred to the secretary of the South Canterbury Master Butchers’ Association yesterday he said that while no decision had been reached in South Canterbury, his association had the matter under consideration. . The South Canterbury Association was in sympathy with the course adopted by Christchurch and Dunedin butchers, he said. It was recognised that there were Quite a large number of anomalies in the trade, especially in that while there were fixed retail prices, butchers hac, to purchase stock oh a fluctuating market.