§ Captain Pluggeasked the Minister of Food the nature of the administrative difficulties which exist in the way of supplying the farmer with the actual killing-out weights of his material?
Mr. Temple Morrisasked the Minister of Food the exact reason why the Government has issued instructions to slaughter-house managers that the fanners must not be told what their animals actually weigh when killed; and whether he will take steps to see that any difficulties, administrative or otherwise, are surmounted in the interests of fairness?
§ Mr. W. S. MorrisonThe practical difficulty in the way of supplying farmers with the actual killing-out weights of their cattle and sheep arises from the fact that there is no satisfactory method in every case of positively identifying individual animals and their carcases at the slaughter-house. Individual lots of sheep are not separately marked at the collecting centres and the labels used for marking cattle frequently become detached, especially in wet weather, during the journey to the slaughter-house. Furthermore animals presented at a particular collecting centre may be dispatched to different slaughter-houses. In order to supply farmers with the killing-out weights of their animals, it would be necessary to make elaborate arrangements for the definite identification of the individual animals and the carcases at all slaughter-houses; such arrangements would add considerably to the complexity and administrative costs of the scheme.