THREE COURSES

Wanganui Chronicle, Volume 86, Issue 226, 25 September 1942, Page 1

THREE COURSES

AUSTRALIANS’ MEALS MAXIMUM PRICES FIXED Sydney, Sept. 12. From September 21, hotels and restaurants will be prohibited from serving any customer with a meal of more than three courses. Maximum charges will be: Dinner ss, luncheon 4s, other meals 3s The serving of hors d’oeuvres will be banned and oysters and savouries will each rank as a full course. This announcement was made by the Prime Minister, Mr. Curtin. He said that all businesses supplying food for consumption on the premises came within the definition of caterer in the order. The term “caterer” meant any person who carried on the business of supplying food for consumption on the premises, whether food be supplied separately or together with any form of accommodation or entertainment, and included the proprietor of any hotel, public house, restaurant, cafe, tea shop, coffee house, cake shop, club canteen, kiosk, fish shop, refreshment room, hospital, sanatorium, convalescent home, nursing home, college, residentirJ educational establishment, or similar establishments, apartment house, residential hotel, residential club, service fiats, or hostel. It also included any employee of such person and, in the case of a club, the committee of the club. “'T’he Government is concerned to see that the serving of expensive meals (which take much valuable manpower and materials) is eliminated.” Mr. Curtin said. “Men in the Army, the Navy, and the Air Force are by nature of their situation restricted in the meals that they can obtain, and I am sure that men and women in civilian life are anxious to curtail their meals so that they can truthfully say that their meals have been reduced to reasonable limits and unnecessary luxuries. “I emphasise that the prices do not mean increases in the charges for meals served hitherto, because any prices below the maximum prices must not be raised. “The Prices Commissioner is examining the further r.djustments that may be necessary in prices for meals on account of the simplification covered by the order. “The order issued by the Prices Commissioner will define luncheon as a meal served between the hours of noon and 2.30 p.m., and dinner as any meal served between the hours of 6 p.m. and 8.30 p.m.”