30 
the Board does keep up prices; in another sense the Board keeps 
prices down. In so far as the Board does not regulate the total 
quantities leaving New Zealand during any year, but merely 
distributes those quantities more evenly over the year, while, 
at the same time, fostering production, there is ground for the 
view that its operations are not inimical to the interests of the 
consumer. They are certainly calculated to reduce speculation, 
The price history of the New Zealand trade since 1922 has 
been a happy one, and would have been so without a Meat 
Board.* Correspondingly, the Board has been fortunate in 
being able to concentrate on important questions, such as grading 
and shipping, which could only be dealt with by action taken 
on behalf of the industry as a whole. Its problem has been 
comparatively simple; the works and ports provide convenient 
points from which to regulate shipments; the industry, whose 
interest it serves, is one of vital concern to the Dominion, and 
has the support of a strong body of Dominion opinion. Business 
is easy and pleasant when prices are satisfactory; it is during 
times of slump that a business organisation is tested out. So 
will it be with the New Zealand Meat Producers’ Board, if and 
when it is confronted with the real problem of prices and has 
recourse to its powers of taking over the sale of New Zealand 
meat in the world’s markets. 
(b) The Australian Meat Council.t—At first a voluntary 
organisation, established in 1922, with an honorary representa- 
tive in London, the Australian Meat Council will, in a few months, 
be established by legal enactment when the Bills now before 
the State Legislatures are passed. In Queensland, New South 
Wales and Tasmania this has already taken place. 
The problem before the Meat Council of Australia is more 
difficult than that before the New Zealand Meat Producers’ 
Board, for the country is much larger and the interests to be 
represented are not relatively so important to the population 
of the country as a whole, so that pastoral problems assume less 
significance. In New Zealand again, the Board has to control 
an article—taking mutton and lamb together as one commodity— 
for which, at present, there is no real substitute from other 
sources at similar prices, a fact which enormously simplifies 
the problem of control. Beef is but a minor part of their task. 
In Australia, both cattle and sheep constitute the problem— 
the former, indeed, is the major factor. Distance, too, must 
affect the corporate feeling of the livestock industry in Australia; 
the producers of Northern Territory and Western Australia, for 
example, are separated by vast distances from their fellow 
pastoralists on the eastern slopes. In spite of the difficulties, 
it is the task of the Meat Council to view the whole pastoral 
industry as one unit. 
* See also ““ Report of Royal Commission on Food Prices.”” Cmd. 2390 
1925, paragraphs 301 to 308. 
t See also ““ Report of Roval Commission on Food Prices.” Cmd. 2390 
1025. paracrabhs 312-313.