SUPPLY DIFFICULTIES

Otago Daily Times, Issue 26956, 16 December 1948, Page 7

SUPPLY DIFFICULTIES

ARGENTINA’S CONTRACT WITH BRITAIN MEAT RATION THREATENED NZPA Special Correspondent LONDON, Dec. 14. Argentine meat deliveries to Britain are being delayed because of Argentina’s inability to meet the British contract and her new contracts with 'Continental countries simultaneously, according to the Imported Meat Trade Association. In the meantime, as a result of the falling-off in the Argentine meat deliveries, the British meat ration, of which the Argentine at present supplies one-quarter, is threatened. Britain has a strong bargaining card in oil, which will help to force Argentina into a quick agreement 'in the. new Anglo-American meat contract, according to impartial observers in Buenos Aires, states the Associated Press. They do not share the pessimism expressed in some quarters in London over the outcome of the meat negotiations. Oil Shortage Argentina needs oil badly—she must, import 40 per cent, of her needs to keep her road and most of her rail transport going. But she is short of dollars to buy oil in her usual markets, and the Government ■ has already .announced that it expects to complete a barter deal with the British Empire for oil. Negotiations are said to be in progress with the Shell group. Argentina is also short of sterling—her frozen sterling account in London is needed to back her expanding currency—and in any barter deal Britain is expected to ask for meat in return.

In London the Imported Meat Trade Association has stated that the threat to Britain’s meat supplies is “ the inevitable outcome of continuing to flog the dead horse of bulk buying.” The association has issued a statement in which it also said that “ ever since the war the association has advocated and pressed the importance of a return to normal means of procurement of meat. The trade in traders’ hands is the only means of providing adequate supplies with whatever safeguards are necessary to avoid this sort of thing hapDening during difficult circumstances.”

Meat Consumption

The average American eats twice as much meat and the average New Zealander two and a-half times as much as the average Englishman. A report issued by the Commonwealth Economic Committee gives a detailed account of cnanges in meat production, consumption, and trade.

Last year Britons ate on an average 771 b of meat a head, compared with 1191 b before the war. While they were thus contriving to do without the traditional good roast beef of Old England, the average American was developing his appetite. He ate 1551 b of meat in 1947, compared with 1281 b before the war. Canadians, too, ate more—l3slb a head, instead of 11 lib. Australian and New Zealanders ate less meat, but to the meat-starved Englishman their diet still seemed a heavy one. In Australia the pre-war consumption of 2391 b dropped to 1831 b last year, while the New Zealand figure dropped from 2261 b to 1941 b