PRICE OF MEAT

Timaru Herald, Volume XCVIII, Issue 18084, 2 June 1923, Page 8

PRICE OF MEAT

To the Editor of tho “Timaru Herald.” Sir, —Lately I have read a good deal in the columns of your paper on the question of meat and prices thereof, and it is a question a good deal could be said about, as it is one of the commodities that costs the most in the line of living, especially where there is a large family. I will not speak of Wanganui, where they are cutting prices, but you or anyone can go to one of the leading shops in Christchurch and get the very best beef Canterbury grows, sirloin GJd per lb and the best ribs ad per lb, cash and carry. You may imagine my surprise a few days ago I purchased a sirloin roast of beef at one of your leading shops and was charged 9d per lb. Now, I know for a fact a lot of first-class beef grown in the Timaru district is railed to Addington saleyards, and if Christchurch butchers can purchase those animals and make a piofit by retailing at 6£d per lb, what must these butchers be making at 9d per lb? There is another thing I have often wondered the public have never objected to, and that is the four shanks that are left on each sheep. If you Aveigh them you will find the four weigh from 12oz to lib, and off the four you will not get half an ounce of meat. It takes longer to dress a sheep with these shanks left on them than by taking them off at the first joint, and I say the people of the Dominion are paying hundreds of pounds per year for the shanks that are no gcod to anyone. Statistics show that groceries can be bought as cheaply in Timaru as in any part of New Zealand, and likewise the people of this town should be able to purchase meat as cheaply as in any other town in the Dominion. —I am, etc., “FOR SHANKS OFF THE MUTTON.”