HIGH PRICE OF MEAT.

New Zealand Herald, Volume LI, Issue 15610, 15 May 1914, Page 9

HIGH PRICE OF MEAT.

GRAZIERS' RESPONSIBILITY.

EFFECT OF GOOD SEASONS.

[BT telegraph.-own correspondent.]

Hamtlton, Thursday. Speaking at a meeting of the Waikato Graziers' Association to-day, Mr. Ewan McGregor, president of the local branch of tho Farmers' Union, said ho believed that mutton and beef in Auckland Provinco wero going to be exceedingly dear this winter. If they were getting £2 a head for their mutton, the working man in Auckland, with a fixed wage, was going to have to pay an unreasonable price for his food. Only a few of them had the stock to sell. The stock would not be at that price unless there was a shortage Tho great cry was that the cost of living was going up too much, and they had their eyes shut to the fact that if they froze too much prices went up. It.was of no use to the man that had not got the stock, and there was dissatisfaction and trouble.

Mr. McGregor said that ho had always noticed that in years in which there was a good supply of grass there was a shortage of fat stock in winter. Their freezing works kept going too long each season. This had been a good season for grass right through, and the stock had fattened well, and the result was that they had been freezing too much. The industrial agita- 1 tors made a great point of this. While they had a graziers' association in Hamilton they had not one in any other part of the Dominion from which they could draw information.

Mr. McGregor then referred to the conditions in the south of the island, which he was about to inquire into, and said that if they knew that they had over-frozen in the southern districts, which controlled tho Auckland market since the opening of the railway, they would not freeze any more, but would hold for tho increased prices. Tho speaker added that stock-owners should aim at fixed regular prices, both for moat for the customers and live stock for the butcher.