FROZEN MEAT SWINDLES.

Wanganui Herald, Volume XXXXIV, Issue 12936, 29 November 1909, Page 4

FROZEN MEAT SWINDLES.

The chairman of the Gisborne Farmers' Frozen Meat Company puts forward a suggestion which other companies would find it to their advantage to give some attention to. He suggests a combine agency in London to stop the jobbery which goes on there. It is the old story of the middleman again. The New Zealand producer gets market prices (generally rigged) for New Zealand meat, minus n good many charges which a single agency would lessen. And he has the poor satisfaction of knowing that his meat is re-sold as best English and best Welsh, at a very much greater price. The English consumer who wants New Zealand mutton is told by many middlemen that they don't keep the beastly stuff, but he is bluffed into buying it under another name all the same. He doesn't know the difference between New Zealand and Welsh mutton, but it is to the middlema's interest to make him think he docs. All of which is bad for the reputation of New Zealand mutton. The middleman makes the consumer think it is an inferior article, consequently its position on the market is a second-rate one. If the consumer knew — which he doesn't — that it was such a good article that he can't tell when it is foisted on him as Welsh, his respect for New Zealand mutton would increase, and its position on the marJtet would be considerably elevated. The freezing companies know all these things, wherefore it seems passing strange they have not established an agency before. The Gisborne suggestion is really an old one, though itot so old a*^ the middleman's robbery. 'In fact, the" robbing habits of the middleman are of venerable antiquity.