DEARER BACON

Waipa Post, Volume 48, Issue 3461, 3 May 1934, Page 8

DEARER BACON

POSITION IN BRITAIN.

Remarkable evidence of the effects of the bacon quota was provided by Sir James Martin, chairman of Home and Colonial Stores, at the general meeting of the company in London on March 26. Very soon after the Government’s import restriction policy had been adopted, a rise in retail prices began. The decrease in consumption, which was bound to ioilow, has now become apparent. Home and Colonial Stores suffered a fall in profits last year of £150,000, dnect y attributable, according to Sir James Martin, to a shrinkage in consumption of bacon. , ■>, The same tendency toward shrinking bacon consumption was recorded at the general meeting of Meadow Dairies on March 19, says the ‘ Economist.” Moreover, Sir .lames Martin, who may be assumed to have some practical knowledge oi the bacon market, expressed the opinion at the Home and Colonial meeting that if the present restrictiomst policy is continued bacon may “ go out of fashion as an article of food 111 many households.” ~ , , The public, Sir James addeu, who are after all shrewd in their judgment, do not hesitate to buy what in their view offers the best value, and have no hesitation in substituting one article for another in budgeting tor their household requirements. This is but one among many ot the simple economic facts which Mr Elliot's clumsily-improvised schemes failed to take into account, comments the Economist. The theory behma those schemes was that the price ot one commodity after another could be forced up in the interest of the producer by limiting the supply, an the propable repercussions of such a policy on demand were forgotten or disregarded. In practice, as was inevitable, the consumer is beginning to assert himself; and in the case ot bacon it seems likely that in the long; run not only the retailer and the public but the farmer himself may be injured. If bacon is too dear to buy, no farmer, English or Danish, will get anything for it. We hope that the reaction of the consumer to this case may incline Mr Elliot to study the factor of demand. If he did so, it might perhaps dawn upon him that the interest of producer and consumer alike lies not in restriction 01 supplies but in a cheapening of production and an expansion of demand.