The Mirror was to 1946 what the Post is today, a newspaper where news coverage reflected the political views of its owner. MEAT FAMINE GRIPS CITY: Shops Are Bare" screams the headline of the page 3 coverage of the meat shortage. "No supplies except some poultry and minor amounts of lamb," the story read. Playing the populist card. it goes on to say "Beef practically unobtainable" except under the counter "at high end stores" and in "swank hotels and restaurants."
According to the reporters, about 10 percent of the meat was going abroad and only 20 to 30 percent passing. The black market took up the remainder. But as other analyses of the meat situation pointed out there was no sizable, separate cabal of black marketers. For the most part, they were the same "legitimate channels" who were operating a two tier system, one tier honoring ceiling prices with little supply being offered and another where all sorts of rackets were in play.
Conservatives accused price controls for the situation but the article admitted that the situation had worsened despite price increases granted on April 1 on some pork and beef products to meet wage increases in the packing industries. A bill had been introduced in Congress to end meat subsidies and allow a further price increase of about six cents a pound. Bulk buyers like hotels, night clubs and restaurants had first dibs on the meat through tie-in sales by which they were guaranteed supplies of beef and ham if they agreed to buy turkey, chicken and eggs at prices that were above the market prices but within the ceiling levels.
One butcher said he was trying to institute voluntary rationing at his shop. When a customer called in an order for beef, the butcher tried to talk the customer into a smaller quantity to allow him to service more customers.
See here for more on the meat shortages. Here is the Sunday News coverage and here the calmer approach taken by the Sunday Times, which pointed out that the situation was far better than it had been the prior Easter and far better than the situation of the rest of the postwar world.