POULTRY BLACK MARKET
By WALTER WILKINS
THE question of the poultry black market lately cropped up again in the Commons. The usual evasive action was taken ; the matter was " under discussion," but it was not really of great importance, because it was estimated that only about t per cent. of the available poultry supplies were being sold at more than the control prices, and the Ministry inspectors were really most vigilant. It was the usual preposterous shirking of the issue. Why is it so shirked? For the facts are so entirely different. It is, indeed, extremely doubtful whether more than t per cent. of the poultry killed for human consumption in this land are sold at control prices ; and if most of the birds at present being bought and sold at fantastic prices in the country markets were properly described nearly every market salesman and nearly every poultry-dealer in the land would be liable to prosecution every week.
And it is time someone made it absolutely, publicly, clear that the very great majority of birds for killing are sent to the local weekly livestock markets, but they are never sold as killing poultry ; they are variously described as " stock cockerels," " growing .chickens,", "feeding chickens," "laying hens "—as "stock " birds of some kind or another. Present prices for " stock cockerels " weighing six or seven pounds are somewhere around 25s. For " laying hens " (fat, old birds long past their economic usefulness as egg-producers and weighing eight pounds or so) prices sometimes rise to 4os. The average price per live pound at which these various kinds of " stock" poultry are sold is about 4s. And so it goes on, year after year, and nothing is ever done about it. The authorities must be well aware that no poultry-keeper in his senses ever buys stock birds at an auction market. He buys them direct from a reputable breeder. It is all done so obviously that it seems almost pointless to draw public attention to it.
It is equally obvious that the simple remedy is to make the sale of stock poultry at these markets illegal—this would not affect the bona fide buyer or seller of genuine stock , birds in the slightest degree—and to direct that all killing poultry should be distributed through the existing egg and/or poultry packing-stations (if there are any of the latter still functioning). There is no appreciable black market in eggs, because egg-producers are generally satisfied with the control price and because egg-marketing is really firmly controlled. It might be argued that if table-poultry were similarly marketed they would have to be similarly subsidised in order to ensure a worth-while price to the producer and at the same time keep the retail price within the means of the average housewife.
Some more facts, then. Approximately 16 pounds of feeding-stuffs will rear a four-pound chicken. The same amount of food will pro- duce approximately 24 eggs. For his two-dozen eggs the producer receives 6s. 6d. At the present control price of Is. 4d. per live pound the chicken producer would receive 5s. 4d. for his four-pound bird. Not good enough, comparatively. No ; but it will be seen that is. 8d. per pound would make it well worth his while, especially it is pointed out that he can produce two four-pound chickens in approximately the same time as it takes to rear a pullet to the laying stage and with approximately the same food consumption ; and is. 8d. per liveweight pound to the producer should mean no more than 25. 6d. per pound for the dressed bird to the consumer, given an equitable system of distribution on " packing station " lines. Is this more than the average housewife can afford? She is probably paying a great deal more for her black market bird—if the " average" housewife ever sees one. Incidentally, the present legitimate retail price is 2s. 91-cl. per pound.
It might be further argued that two dozen eggs are of greater nutritional value than a four-pound chicken, and that table-poultry production is not therefore to be encouraged, since it would not be making the best,-use of the available foodstuffs. And the answer is that nothing could be more calculated to encourage table-poultry production, of the most uneconomic kind, than the present system, or, rather, the present complete lack of system. (I'll wager that if the total amount of " tail corn " consumed by all the overgrown • six-to-ten-pound " stock cockerels " which are black-marketed annually could be computed and made known it would shock the public out of its apathy.) And it is not suggested that table-poultry production should be excessively encouraged, but simply that all the surplus cockerels and hens which are the inevitable by-products of egg-production should be killed at the proper age and evenly dis- tributed at fair prices to producer and consumer ; that those poultry- keepers whose holdings and general conditions are best suited to the economic production of small, quick-growing table-birds should be encouraged to rear them to their fullest capacity without in- curring the continual risk of prosecution (slight as it is!) ; and that the whole furtive business of poultry-marketing should be cleaned up without delay. It ought to have been cleaned up long ago. When I first became aware of it some years ago I sent a rather angry description of local practice to a Left-wing journal—for in those days, so help me! I had Socialistic leanings. I was told, if I remem- ber aright, that it was an " excellent piece," but that it would attract
wide attention—and was I prepared to allow local investigation? I was not so prepared ; for I could guess only too well what might happen here would perhaps be vicious prosecution of some normally law-abiding cottager or small-town " higgler," and the real ringleaders, the primary instigators of the thing, would go scot- free. And then, as now, it was not merely a " local " matter ; it was a country-wide -racket. It was then, as it is still, a case for the complete revision of a " control" which seems to have been designed with every possible loophole for evasion.
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