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retail prices, the Ministry of Pensions bought chilled hindquarters at 5d. and were able to supply the prime joints to their hospitals at an average cost of 71d., selling off the residues in the open market at current prices (224)-and this margin of 2d. per pound between the wholesale price and the cost of 'prime joints' covered all costs. Apart from necessary variations in the cost of the conduct of various retail businesses, this figure illustrates the tolls levied by the numerous agents which intervene between the wholesale market and the consumer. It is clearly the higher individual profit of the retailer and the middleman that accounts for the extraordinary differences in the scale of Pre- and Post-War Prices of the same quality of beef as given in the Report of the Linlithgow Committee 7:

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This increase in the margin between wholesale and retail prices acquires its significance when we recall that something like a third of the weekly family expenditure is on food, and that the increase extends, as the Report shows (187), to the cheapest cuts, so that brisket which cost 3d. in 1914 now costs 61d. The disproportionate increase in cost, even of the cheapest cuts, also furnishes the explanation of the records that are emerging of the diet of the school children that are returned as 'ill nourished.' As a single illustration I may mention that a few weeks ago the school medical officer of the county of Devon in his Annual Report was emphasising the significance of the high percentage of illnourished children found in the country schools, and it appeared that, as the result of a detailed investigation of the diet of a group of unselected children, only 35 per cent. of them had meat every day!

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On retailers' profits generally the Commission finds that they could well afford to reduce their price by as much as Id. a pound on half the meat they sell' (210), and that 'London meat retailers have doubled their money income since before the war.' It confirms the findings of the Linlithgow Committee as to the existence of 'rings' of the local butchers to keep down the price to the producer in various markets, but the organisation of pricefixing arrangements amongst individual meat retailers, apart from the 2356 retail shops belonging to the Union Cold Storage Company, does not seem to have become so well organised as in

Page 14, table 5.

the baking trade. One reason, no doubt, why this is not so prevalent in meat retailing as in bread is that a great variety of meats are sold, and the Commissioners, in common with Mr. Bridgeman's Committee, are 'much impressed' (237) by the weight of evidence of the widespread wrong description of the cheaper, chilled or frozen, meat as English meat, and it is as a safeguard against this substitution that they recommend 'the compulsory registration of retail butchers' (243). - On this the Prime Minister promises 'to consult representatives of the local authorities.'

Whilst it is necessary that means should be taken for stopping the sale of cheaper chilled meat as if it were the more expensive home produce, it would be a calamity if attention to a relative detail of this kind were to detract our attention from the evidence that this Report furnishes of the prodigious power of the great Meat Trusts. The ramifications of the interests concerned in the wholesale meat trade and the way in which they dictate terms from the far-away producer to the home consumer, are scattered through the second half of this Report, and in order to understand them we have to piece them together with the much clearer statements provided in the Bridgeman and Macrosty Reports. We have already seen that in 1924 more than half our beef was imported, but no less than 71 per cent. of this imported beef came from the Argentine. The proportions of imported supplies from this single source have increased from 47 per cent. in 1913 to the present amount, and there is no sign of a diminished rate of increase. On the other hand, the amount obtained from our great Dominions has only increased from 9 to 11 per cent. of the total supplies. The British-owned Union Cold Storage Company, under the direction of Lord Vestey, and the American meat corporations, control between them nine-tenths of the Argentine supply. The Bridgeman Committee provides us with a complete account of the American meat companies, nominally operating separately, but all interrelated. The share of the Argentine trade in 1918 between the two groups was apportioned as follows:

Union Cold Storage Company
American companies

22 per cent.
68 "

The American meat companies also control more than half the beef supplied at Smithfield, and they are rapidly extending their organisations and control in different British Dominions. Up to 1913 there had been sporadic price wars between the two groups, but, according to Lord Vestey, 'since then there has not been a "real set-to"' (291). So far from there being a 'set-to,' there has been a sitting together. The refrigerating companies have constituted a 'Conference,' the character of which is well

set out by the Bridgeman Committee. The Royal Commission is too polite to suggest that this conference is in effect a gigantic trust, and quotes a witness who describes it as 'an harmonious interchange of ideas on the subject of prices' (287). The result, however, of this 'harmonious interchange,' as described by an Argentine producer, is that they state their price, and the producer is compelled to take it or leave it.' The unfortunate Argentine producer is sometimes also the subject of a well-organised slump, although the price reduction is not passed on to the British consumer. We are told (284) that 'in 1922 calves were sold in Buenos Ayres for less than the price of chickens,' but it is added that 'it is interesting to note that this exceptionally severe slump was not apparently due to, or accompanied by, any lessening in the volume of the demand.'

Having obtained supplies from the Argentine producer at the price thus dictated, ' a freight committee consisting of representatives of the steamship companies and the meat companies sits in London and fixes the amount of freight required from time to time' (290). These combines control their own cold storage in this country, although a great amount is provided by dock and other authorities, and in January 1925 80 per cent. of our total cold storage capacity was empty! (259). The meat companies, therefore, are able to regulate supplies according to their own cold storage convenience. It is comforting to know that one of the few recommendations of the Commission, and the only one accepted as it stands by the Prime Minister, is that the cold storage proprietors should be compelled to make a return of what they have in their stores.

The meat is thus brought to this country, where the greater part of the stalls in Smithfield are owned by the same concerns. It is denied that there is any collusion between Smithfield and the provincial markets; nevertheless, Smithfield is the basic market' (255), and information is sent to the country depôts by the meat companies telling them the trend of Smithfield prices' (255), and until they are so told the trend' of the prices retailers in provincial markets find 'it is impossible to bargain about the price' (255), and the provincial markets 'cease to be independent' (256). The Royal Commission has tried hard, but is not satisfied that it has solved this mystery!' Perhaps it is another manifestation of an entirely innocent and childlike 'harmonious interchange of view' in a telephone call office. The result, however, is that the retailer in the provincial market, or in Smithfield, can only get his supplies at the price arranged, just as the producer in the Argentine has to take it or leave it.'

'One of the principal objects' of the Freight Committee 'is

to prevent the total quantity of chilled beef reaching this country at any time being in excess of what the market can absorb on terms which will yield a satisfactory margin of profit' (291). The Commission, therefore, not unnaturally observes, seeing that the price the producer is to receive, the amount the Britisher is to be allowed to get, and the price he has to pay for what he does get are decided by the 'Conference' in South America and the 'Freight Committee' in London, that:

It is clear that the system of regulating supplies of an important article of food by a combination of private traders is open to serious criticism on grounds of public policy (293).

Public opinion in the United States seems to have been somewhat less tender in its phrases, for the Bridgeman Committee told us that' the Federal Trade Commission on the meat-packing industry has denounced the meat companies as a combination working through a live-stock pool, and has accused them of sundry malpractices' (16), on the ground of which the United States Government was taking proceedings against them. The Royal Commission, although believing that the situation 'calls for close and immediate attention' (294) from the Food Council, thinks that the Council ' should exert its influence to secure the more harmonious and efficient working of the existing system & by acting as an impartial observer and counsellor rather than attempt to impose any cast-iron system of State regulation' (294).

A'cast-iron system of State regulation' is certainly not the only alternative, but, apart from that, the improvements in the efficient working of the existing system would appear to be a matter which the meat companies are well able to look after themselves, because we are told that the producers in the Argentine became so incensed that the Argentine Government in 1923 passed a law fixing minimum prices, 'and requiring all sales to be on a live weight basis'; but after three weeks, during which the refrigerating companies ceased buying, the operation of the law was 'suspended' (293). The Argentine Government was, however, urged by the producers 'to acquire freezing works of its own,' but it neglected to do this. It might have made a world of difference if the producer had had an alternative customer for his stock! In New Zealand the producers, by the aid of the Government, have set up, for their own defence against exploitation by the trusts, a sale agency known as the 'Meat Producers' Board.' It found in 1921 (301) that fat wethers in New Zealand were being bought for 8s., but the carcases of mutton were sold in Smithfield for 28s. The Board seems to have had the effect both of shutting out the speculator and of emancipating them from the control of the combines, and the Royal Commission

• My italics.

recommends that this example should be 'the subject of continuous and sympathetic observation.'

I must digress at this point to refer to what happened at Las Palmas during the war. The Board of Trade took over works there that had been closed for two years, and operated them for the supply of meat for the Allied forces. According to the Bridgeman Committee (44), the enterprise has been very successful. At that time (1919) the operations were being continued, and they recommended that the 'British Government should acquire an interest in one or more of the South American freezing works' (60); and the Macrosty Committee recommended that the 'Las Palmas meat works in Argentina should continue to be operated on behalf of His Majesty's Government so as to afford a means of watching the developments of cost and price movements' (13). Notwithstanding the recommendations of these two authoritative committees, the Las Palmas contract was terminated, because, so we are told, 'the fighting services proposed to get their frozen meat from Empire sources' (295). This scarcely seems to have been a very substantial reason, seeing that the Army had become demobilised and, with a continuing need of meat, had become absorbed in the civilian population, which, in its turn, is dependent for 70 per cent. of its imported beef on South American supplies. Nor was there any reason on the ground of economy for depriving ourselves of this safeguard against the conference,' because the Controller and Auditor-General (Trading Accounts and Balance-sheets, 1921, No. 126, July 1922) found that we had made a profit on the Las Palmas factory of 617,6951. A guidance for future policy on this point is thus afforded by the Royal Commission :

Future developments should be closely watched by the Food Council, since it might become necessary for the Government to intervene either by acquiring a controlling interest in British companies operating in Argentina or in some other way (295).

What' other way,' I wonder ?

A Committee on Trusts was appointed by me when I was Minister of Reconstruction. It was a powerful and independent body. Its first report was available in April 1918, and subsequent reports, including that of Mr. Macrosty's sub-committee, have appeared. There are three courses open to a nation with regard to trusts. There are first the principles ably recommended by Mr. T. H. Ryland in his minority report-that is, to leave things alone and trust to the developments of private enterprise, even if they do take the form of growing combinations, because, after all, even a trust must sell its goods somehow. I do not know whether Mr. Ryland had the report of the Committee on Trusts available. If so he must have overlooked its lucid exposi

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