Evening star., 1945-04-27
Meat
Continued From First Page

fair and equitable profit margin
clause of the act; that they had
caused maldistfibutio1i of available
food supplies. and had given i'm.
petus to black market operations
Preceding Mr.. Christensen to the
witness stand, Mark 8 L. Langford
manager of the Washington division
of Safeway, disclosed that if the
chain had not purchased and oper-
ated its own slaughter plants in re-
cent months, the company would
have been forced to close down all
its meat stands during the present
famine
Mr.. Langford testified that sup
plies in meats from the big packers
to Safeway had fallen off sharply
dropping we'll below the 10 per cent
allotment they had expected. For
tunately, he said, the chain was
able to make up marked deficit
from its own plants. For instance, OF
some 3.296.0Q0 pounds of beef pur-
chased during the first quarter OF
this year, about 2,664,000 pounds
came from company owned plants
La Roe Attacks Program.
Earlier, Wilbur La Roe, jr., gen.
eral counsel of the National indie
pendent Meat Packers Associa ton
sharply criticized the OPA-s recently
announced program to relieve the
price squeeze on slaughterers and to
set up quota system to better dis
tribute supplies.
The so-called relief recently
granted to the meat packing indus
try is so utterly inadequate that it
fails to solve any of the basic prob
lens involved" Mr. La Roe declared
In some instances, he said. the
new plan does reduce losses, but he
insisted that it does not grant a
generally fair and adequate margin
as required by law.
"OPA has shown a persistent and
stubborn unwillingness to deal ade-
quately with the problem, and we
know of no remedy except through
legislation which we earnestly hope
will be enacted" the packers
spokesman said
Injuries Small Packers.
Mr.. La Roe said the OPA plan for
establishing quotas on nonfederally
inspected slaughterers, in a move to
channel more meat across State
lines, would "injure the legitimate
small packers by CHASING them with
the black market operators"
He said the Governments policy
Is inconsistent because "it is making
plans to control the black market.
and at the same time it is placing
limitations on the legitimate intra-
state houses on the theory that the
black market is depriying the Army
of meat Why not first bring the
black market under control and then
determine whether it is necessary
to inf1ict this injury on the legiti-
mate intrastate packers?"
Meanwhile. it was learned that
Washington's meat famine may be
relieved slightly in the coming weeks
by additional shipments from large
packers in the West in line with an
IRA pOIlCy 10 SIiuut SuppucS 10
critically short areas.
John Madigan, head of the OPA's
meat division, disclosed that efforts
are being made to get several OF
the big packers to increase their
shipments of meat here. It de-
veioped at the hearing yesterday
that OPA already has received a
promise from one Chicago packer
toll ship an additional carload OF
twp of meat a week to Washington
'he first shipment is expected
next week. While 1t will amount
to- no more than $4,000 pounds a
carload. other packers agreeing to
the plan may bring some easing
OF the supply situation.