A TRADE DISPUTE.

New Zealand Mail, Issue 999, 24 April 1891, Page 27

A TRADE DISPUTE.

(PER PRESS ASSOCIATION.) Auckland, April 21. A dispute has occurred iu the butchering trade between the Frozen Meat Company Company and the retailers. About eighteen months ago the Company had several retail establishments for the sale of meat in different parts of the country. The competition between the Company and the other butchers became so keen that both parties were making very little money, the result being that the Master Batchers’ Association entered into an agreement with the Company to take a certain quantity of meat from the latter in consideration of the Company entirely giving up the retail trade. The retail shops of the Company were closed, and a bond was signed by ten master batchers agreeing to take 60 much meat at the market price or to forfeit £SOO in case of breach of agreement. Certain of the butchers did break the agreement; by taking less than the stipulated quantity of meat from the Company. These butchers claim that the trade has for various reasons so fallen off that it is impossible for them to take the full quantity, but when the agreement was so broken the £SOO was of course forfeited, and the money has been paid over to the Company. The Butchers Association now allege that the Company have entered into the retail trade by supporting a butcher who has been hawking meat and selling at greatly reduced rates. They say it means ruin for most of them to have to enter into a cut-throat competition.