Knife at the Belly

For months, meat has been getting scarcer and prices higher in the Great Republic of Beef. Last week grumbling had grown too loud to be ignored any longer. With a great show of surprised innocence, Juan Peron burst into speech. He had no idea of what was going on, said he, until his labor leaders (all handpicked) had told him. "The workers have put a knife against my belly--and they are fully justified." Who was to blame? Not Peron or the labor leaders, of course, but cattle barons and butchers.

Said Peron: "The economic police, with 200 inspectors, can't keep watch over 200,000 or 300,000 shops. [But] if I had 200,000 inspectors, you would simply have to pay their salaries, and anyway, half of them would be thieves ... I myself . . . will slaughter cattle in the Avenida General Paz, and give meat away free." To get meat to markets, he threatened to "use troops to storm the cattle ranches." As for black-marketing butchers, "I will make them obey by the rifle butt."

Next day, stock raisers prudently decided to send more cattle to market. Ceiling prices would be obeyed in the shops--for a few weeks. Unsolved was the real problem: Peron's own economic tinkering denied stock raisers adequate profits just when they were hard hit by droughts.

This file is automatically generated by a robot program, so reader's discretion is required.