MEAT INDUSTRY.

Auckland Star, Volume LXI, Issue 65, 18 March 1930, Page 9

MEAT INDUSTRY.

PRESERVING IN FIJI.

UNSUITABILITY OF CATTLE. BRIGHT OUTLOOK FOR DAIRYING. While dairying is progressing in Fiji, that country has no future so far as the meat preserving industry is concerned owing to the unsuitability 01 the' 1 cattle that is bred. f This opinion has been formed by Mr. George B. Hopper, formerly manager of the Wellington Meat Export Company and the Otago Meat Preserving Com- j pany, who returned to -S"e-,v Zealand this \ morning by the Tofua after having spenti two years in Fiji as manager of the Tova Meat Preserving Com-1 pany Mr. Hopper has been in the [ employ of Mr. Henry Marks, the j wealthy island merchant, and has been engaged on his 100,000 acre estate at Tova, where beef for the tinned meat iudustrv is bred. The New Zealander has been working amongst the natives, remote from civilisation, and declares that he will never go back to a "black man's country"' i after his experiences. "I have had my j fill of it," he said. "It is fine to be back in civilisation, and fine to be able to' speak English" to you. Until I went to Suva to join the Tofua I had not seen [ a white man for eighteen months." Superiority of Imported Meats. Discussing the meat industry in Fiji, Mr. Hopper stated that the country i could not carry on in that connection : with the class of cattle it had. New I Zealand exporters had nothing to fear i from the island competition, as. although i the imported article was handicapped < by duty of 3d a pound, the people in Fiji preferred it. The local tinned meats < were inferior in quality to imported i meats, and the cattle were small of i stature aril not suited for preserving. In addition 6 per cent of the beef had t to be condemned for T.B. alone. Pros- c pects for dairying, on the other hand, looked very good, and the Tailevu dairy factory was producing some of the finest butter in the world. The output had increased by 75 per cent since the Great War. and the general development of th industrv was steady.

Mr. Kopper considers there are great opportunities for men with capital in Fiji. For instance, coconut fibre, which was worth £9 a ton in New York, was now being burnt. Samoa and Fiji were the only countries in. the world which were destroying their fibre, which could be used for brush ; making, paper manufacture and many other purposes. The Fijians themselves' are one of the finest races in the world, according to Mr. Hopper. They were hard-working and much superior to the Indians, who are being taken to the country for cheap labour.