MEAT TRUST MENACE.

Marlborough Express, Volume XLIII, Issue 116, 14 May 1909, Page 6

MEAT TRUST MENACE.

LONDON, March 26. Strong comments on the increasing imports of foreign meat are made in Central Markets Committee, issued yesterday. "At present nearly 40 per cent, of the beef arriving at the market' is derived from the United States, and the fact that meat-producing companies of that country have acquired productive works in South America is important. The continued stoppage of live cattle importation from South America, may yet become a matter of ominous import. "Should the various overseas sources of supply become controlled by , a group of powerful firms, then the ! price of meat on the market can be dominate*!, and easily, because the ! proportion of British productions ari- riving here—one ton in five—could not be increased under existing conditions. "In effect, the opportunities of productive employment, the greater' circulation of wages in this country, together with the standing of the British producer, have been diminished. He has now to face greatly increased importations of an article bred, produced, preserved, and conveyed under such favourable conditions that its competition and intense cheapness is making his position untenable." Of 409,732 tons of meat and provisions dealt with in the markets lastyear, 88,262 were bred and slaughtered in the United Kingdom, 54,691 tons fattened in Canada or the United States and slaughtered here, and 266,779 tons, or 65 per cent., were Colonial, American, or foreign productions.