ARMY MEAT SUPPLIES

Otago Daily Times, Issue 18761, 15 January 1923, Page 7

ARMY MEAT SUPPLIES

INTERESTING CHAPTER OF THE WAR. HOW THE TROOPS WERE FED. WORK OF SIR T. ROBINSON. (FROM Oun Ovvtt COP.EESrONDENT.) LONDON, November 50. Army meat, supplies will always form an ini cresting chapter of the British war administration. Last week the officials of the Board of Trade listened to a lecture on the subject, delivered lay Air Macrosty, who, as a prominent, official, had much to do with matters concerning supplies during that period. Mr Macrosty explained how. when war broke out, trade—and in particular trade with South America —was entirely disorganised. The meat ships from the River Plato had been run under contracts between the shipowners and the meat companies, and these contracts had a war clause in them. The shipowners immediately suspended their contracts, so that the old rates of gd or jjd per Jb on moat became inoperative, shipping ceased to run, and freights were talked up to 2d per lb. It was there that the

Board of Trade stepped in first, when the President (Mr Runciman) had an interview with the leading shipowners, which resulted in bringing the rates down to the moderate figure of or, roughly speaking, double the pre-war rate. A great difficulty was to fix a price, because the meat companies more than anybody else were quite at soa in (he matter. They were desperately afraid of asking too little, and they were not, quite sure what would happen if they asked too much. So it was agreed that, they should ho paid at the average price of meat during the week of the arrival of contract moat. It was stipulated also that they should carry on the rest of their trade for civilian purposes on the old scale, as far as shipping would allow, which would naturally prevent them from pushing prices up to any ndicu eons height; and in order to enable them to

finance their business it was agreed that per cent, of the value of any cargo should he paid in the River D-ate on the date of the vessel's sailing. That set the financial machine going again, and trade was once more restored. SIR THOMAS ROBINSON. _ ‘'Fortunately.’’ Mr Macrosty explained, “Sir Thomas Robinson had had great, experience both in shipping and in meat business in Australia, and was anxious to oner his services to the Government, , having .already done very good service in securing tho diversion to this Country of several cargoes of meat from Australia which had been intended for tho Continent. I saw him, saw the meat companies, and ultimately. in November, we got that contract finally settled, and I drew up a series of reports as to what would be the duties of "everybody under these contracts. Sir Thomas Robinson was to be agent for the Board of Trade, and various other officials were provided with detailed instructions, which were never looked at after the first reading. Wo had to improvise everything, and, having got a good business man to look after the business end of things for tho Board of Trade, wo went along and made our machinery as wo required it. working* upon experience which we woie gradually acquiring from day to day. Sir Thomas Robinson saw to the meat getting over here and to its transfer to the War Office when it did arrive; w e appointed the War Office experts to be our experts to examine the meat, and there was complete continuity between us and the Supplies Division of the IV ar Office. The first serious trouble was in connection with the payment for it, and Sir Kenneth Anderson had to make a rather complicated series of arrangements, first of all with the London River Plate Bank, and later with all the banks that were dealing with South America, to telegraph the money to the meat companies in tho Plate. Soon the exchange went against this country, and the less so caused

produced a serious increase in expense. BRINGING FRANCE AND ITALY INTO LINE. The Plate contract was found insufficient for requirements, and North American, Australian, and Now Zealand meat bad. to he bought. By the beginning of 1915 a ne.v trouble arose. “Ihe French, very much impressed by the way in which our soldiers had fought during the autumn and by-the quantities of fresh meat we were sending up to these troops, proceeded to allot so their troops a larger ration than that allotted to British soldiers. They made their own contracts for the supply of meat and shipping, thus forcing up the price ot meat, and rates of freight. Lltmiately we induced them to put the whole of their requirements in the hands of tho Board of Trade and to buy everything through Sir Thomas Robinson, wo guaranteeing them about 20,000 tons of meat a month A little later on the Italians came in, and we hod to persuade them to put themselves in our hands, thus adding to our obligations about another 5000 tons a month. On the top of that our armies at home were gradually increasing and we were warned that bv the soring our supplies would need to be doubled. Wc could no longer simply rely upon going into the market and 1 bargaining. The next thing was that, on the initiative of Sir Thomas Robinson, wo made arrangements to buy up the whole cutout off Australia and New Zealand, both of beef and mutton. ... It was a highly successful transaction. •‘Next we had to make a new Plate contract in May, ISIS, for 25,000 tens a month. We bought out and out at a fixed price, a good bit higher than we had been paying in September, 1914, but be-foi-o the’ contract was signed the market price in London hero had risen above the equivalent contract price, and Sir Thomas, who carried on negotiations, deserved great credit for a veiy successful piece of Wo also m ade a separate contract with the Armour Company which had opened new works and we arranged with* the British and Argentine Meat Company that they should open a closed works, and run it on profit-sharing terms as agents for us, producing about 3090 tons a month This Las Palmas contract was ono of tho most successful things that, the Board cf Trade did in connection with the moat supplies, liecause, during tho currency of the war, it saved us over £600,000. HOW EGYPT WAS FED.

After dealing with the troubles of requisitioning transport, the lecturer proceeded; “The most important success that we scored was that, the contract should rim to the end of the war and six months afterwards. A little later we made a new contract with the Australians at a higher rate, as their costs had increased considerably on account of a drought and an equivalent concession was mode to New Zealand. We created a new trade in Brazil, which produced a qualify of moat satisfactory to the Italians, We revived Canadian trade in meat, and started South Africa m the meat business. We also bought. < 'anadinn frozen fish and Australian rabbits lor the army, but those were .not very successful side lines. “One of our chid troubles was to feed Kgypt, where we bad a very large army. At first we ussd troopships coining vp from Australia and New Zealand, but when the Admiralty diverted those vessels to the Capo route we had to send ships from the Plate. Later the Admiralty dosed the Mediterranean, and our task became almost impossible. Jn the course of 1917, to anticipate matters, we started a regular service of meat ships confined to the Aus-tralasin-Egypt route, and this worked very successfully during 1918 and 191°. To get the moat from Kgypt to the actual scat cf operations was also extremely difficult, and a number of large ships wore kept out there practically as store ships. This was, naturally, wasteful, and the Admiralty, on our advice, equipped a number of fruit ships to act as moat carriers, thus releasing a number of ocean-going vessels. THE .SHIPPING COMMITTEE:

“In 1917 came the first big change in organisation. When wo requisitioned the Australasian and Piste ships in 1915 wo left (ho shipowners to run them, and, in order to provide our link of communication between the shipowners and the Board of 'trade, (hoy were asked to set np a Committee of Shipowners for each route. Australia and New Zealand set up a rather large committee with Lord Inchoate in the chair and Mr While (of the P. and O. branch) as secretary. Subcommittees in Australia and New Zealand attended to the detail work of loading ships. There was also a Refrigerated Tonnage Committee of smaller numbers with Mr Kayo, shipbroker, as secretary, to act for the Plate route, and the local manager of one of the British meat companies in Buenos Aires attended to the allocation of space and loading of ships there. Then in 1917 came the practical advent of the Ministry of Shipping, and it was perfectly plain (hat as they claimed powers of requisition inherited from the Admiralty, there was every chance of confusion if both parlies tried to exercise their powers. Fortunately, we know the people at the Ministry of Shipping because we had met them over our freighting business in Australia and the River Plate, and Sir L. Fletcher and I. meeting rather casually one day, suggested to one another that it would

be a good thing to set tip a joint com- 1 milteo to regulate any disputes which might arise between, the two departments. The committee was a sheer improvisation, and it gradually pulled in more work to itself, because day by diy when the submarine campaign was going on the whole business of supply was getting more complex, and wo never could look far ahead. We had to make expedients to suit the immediate needs, and if there was no machinery v.e had to create it. When we started our minutes took up a foolscap page; in a tew months 20 pages were required. MAPPING OUT POSITION OF SHIPS. “Wo were able and did at the end of each month—and this was tho task thas fell on mo at. the Board of Trade —to map out tho actual positions of all the vessels and their probable positions over the next three or four months. Of course, the further we got from the actual day, tho more problematical our results became, but it gave u* something to work on. Then wo knew periodically, practically weekly, from tho_ Plate ana monthly from Australia and New Zealand, what supplies were coming forward. At this end we knew from tho War Office, from the French Government, and from the Italian, Government what were their requirements, and what they would be able to take weekr by week at their respective ports at which we were unloading, so that we had a trcb-0 task—-not merely to fit supplies to ships, but to fit supplies and ships to ports, and we 3iad to be prepared if some unexpected need arose at some particular port because' military operations ■were going on in the area served by that port, to make elaborate schemes for diverting meat ships from one port to another. Our forecasts always hopelessly broke down, our ships were always late, but the utility of tho forecasts was that wc were able to see the breakdown before it occurred and make plans for getling the meat from somewhere else. yVo always did find our supplies, and one thingwhich' we can be proud of is that w© never left tho army wanting its meat. WHY NEW ZEALAND SUFFERED. “In 1917 wo began the concentration of shipping. Before it became the regular . Government policy wo found out by expert- , ence that if v.e were going to lose ship?,,,, and if dur demands for meat and other.,, produce were co'ntinually raised, we had eob to go to the nearest source of supply, and so we took ships out of the Australasian, and Now Zeeland routes and transferred them to the Plate,, where they could do twice the amount of work. This policy was carried to a higher pitch in 1918, when tlie necessity for getting American troops arose, ' for every insulated ship that could carry troops was taken away from the Plate and;, Australasia and put into the North Atlantic. That had two unpleasant results—we had - to bring poor quality of American beef for our own consumption and we had to let ' heavy stocks of good New Zealand rauttoiv • and lamb pile up in the stores of the do- N ; minion. WORST YEAR OF ALL. “You may think that everything was all right when we got to the Armistice, but, some of our worst troubles began them We still had to feed the Armies while they , were being demobilised. The amount of supplies required by the Army were varying from day to day downwards, not , equally in all districts. Any number of . vessels had to be found to carry the troops! . back to Canada and Australia and Now , Zealand, and simultaneously with that a , perfect mania of strikes broke out at home and abroad. Then the influenza epidemic caused grave trouble; all those tilings had , to be struggled with, and 1919 was , al-. .. most a worse rear for us than any previous , year had been. All this disorganisation of the first half of the year meant that, all the ships got to Australia and New : Zealand in bunches, and in tho,.. early winter they all came back in bunches, and caused terrific . congestion in the* port of London and in . every port throughout the country. Some • time before I managed to persuade the. Shipping Committees that they could now' do without payments for demurrage, but : by August, 1919, wo had to grant then* ■ demurrage 'again. It cost an amount of- . money, but jierhaps a £IOO,OOO worth of demurrage had been saved by their ao- ■ quiescence in the early part of the year.” DIRECTION FINDING EXPERIMENTS AT THREE KINGS. The fitting of wireless direction-finding ' apparatus' on the Government steamer Tatanekai for the purpose of testing its suitability at tho Three Kings has been the - subject of further protests from Captain W. Ross (Auckland), chairman of the Lighthouse Committee, and Mr Y. Ryder, secretary of the Merchant Service Guild. Captain Roes voiced his protest after discussing the matter with shipmasters who are now in charge of intercolonial steamers. “The visit of the Tutsnekai to the north coast to test the usefulness of wireless ia place of a light is viewed with suspicion by shipmasters,” he declared. . “The British Admiralty has already, after installing and: , using it, condemned it as a safeguard and,-,; has warned all users not to depend on it..,: If a test were desirable, it could have no . value if made by a Government steamer , with officers of the Marine Department con." ducting it. Surely a test should be conducted 0 by steamers passing between Sydney and Auckland or round the coast. These vessels have in ordinary weather to run to time and cannot delay. Tests would bs worthless taken on a steamer that has no time-table to keep. Again, the action of the * Marine Department in sending its own offi- -i cers to make this test is on a parallel with putting one’s own man on the bench when , sending a- case to the Magistrate s Court, If the Government has decided to break the promises given by their leader a- few months - ago to light the Kings, it would be more honest and less expensive to do so openly. Considering that the Prime Minister madethe offer himself a few months ago, and ~ «that an offer was also made by a private . gentleman not at all connected with ships of a light- at the Kings as a gift, this contemplated test is a farce.” | LIABLE TO GRAVE ERRORS. “The Auckland Merchant Service Guild . and the Lighthouse Committee arc puzzled to know the reason why the Government ■ Nautical Adviser is conducting costly ex- ■ periments with wireless direction-finding • apparatus on the Tutanekai, and cannot let the matter pass without a strong protest in view of the Prime Minister’s qualified promise to provide a light at the .. Throe Kings,” slid Mr Ryder. It is extremely doubtful whether any further information of value will be collected by the . expedition than is already known, as tabulated evidence of the wireless directionfinder’s merits and demerits has been published In- the companies interested in wireless plants. Many conditions are known which will make bearings obtained by a perfectly-adjusted direction tinder unsatisfactory. Within about hair,, an hour of sunrise and sunset varying , and uncertain errors up to as much as Sdeg are often encountered. These errors are due lo natural causes, and it is impossible to detect their presence or to know in which direction to allow for them. If the hue of bearing touches or approaches the coastline or cuts it at a fine angle errors ara introduced which cannot be foretold or at- “ Tho action of (lie wireless diie.ction-finde? is dependent upon the exact position of its. special aerial loops, and as these have tobe accurately adjusted it is imperative that, they should he kept rigid and constant and., ■ it is no exaggeration to say that tho curoc-tion-tinding aerials are liable to errors duo In unskilled and occidental interference. It all vessels throughout New Zealand wero compelled to carry wireless, these proposed wireless direction-finding stations might bo o[ doubtful use. but the majority of boats trading round the coast do not carry wueless plant at all. To this numerous clas* of vessel, therefore, the wireless direction-find-ing station would bo of no service whatever The masters and officers of the Auckland Merchant Service Guild arc fully acquainted, with the working of tho wireless directionfinding plant, and reject such an "istaUation in emphatic preference for a lignt at the Three Kings.”