The Zest for Dearer Meat The agreements reached with India
should help the South Wales tinplate trade. Those with Australia arc too indeterminate to be assessed, except so far as con- cerns the meat trade, regarding which the plan of restric- tion is now published for the first time. The documents on that make strange reading, for they reveal the British delegation at Ottawa as possessed by one overmastering passion-Lto raise the price of meat, particularly the frozen • meat which is the one flesh food .(other than bacon) the poorer sections of the population of this country can afford to buy. Basing itself on the unproved assumption that the fall in prices, if not checked, will reduce production seriously and thus lead • to a rise of price in the future, the delegation determined to forestall ' the future and raise prices now—textually, " to take • whatever steps may appear feasible to raise the wholesale prices of frozen meat in the United Kingdom market." Consequently all foreign imports of frozen mutton, lamb and beef into Great Britain are to be progressively reduced, till by June, 1934. they are cut down to 65 per cent. of the amount imported in 1931-2. At that figure they will stand unless the United Kingdom and the Dominions (the foreigner does not come into the discus- sion) decide otherwise. Chilled beef (mainly Argentine) is not reduced below the present level, but may not rise above it. The avowed aim of this policy is to raise prices against the poorest consumer in this country for the benefit of Dominions producers. That is putting a heavy and dangerous strain on the Empire loyalty which Ottawa is said to have so greatly enhanced.
