Untitled

Daily Telegraph (Napier), Issue 5163, 7 March 1888, Page 2

It is a sjiti.-fju-.tioii to us to know that our few remarks in Monday's issue conceniin>' tlio treatment of frozen meat in Smithfii-!d market has produced an offer from Mr AY. Nelson, of the Tomoana freezing works, to eive his views on the bearing of the Smi'thiield niiirliot on the frozen meat trade. Mr Kelson's letter will b<; found in another column, and it may occur to its readers that it docs not touch on the most serious complaint, our "eye witness" made. That '• eye witness " was a Huwko's Bay sottlcr, Mid we have no reason to think "that he exaggerated what he saw. His words, as nearly us we can now remember them, were that the carcasses were " chucked about liko so much rubbish."' Mr Nelson says that consumers in England would have a roii"-]i time if meat were not delivered in the rafn. Of course they would, l'ut the questions we should like answered are these.:—la Londou tho best market in England ? Is the open-air Smithfieid market the only place in which frozen meat can possibly be so id in London. 1 ' Is it not in the pojver of the controllers of (be frozen meat trade to tell oiiyei'e tlnir they muct buy when and

where they choose P The profits made by butchers on the retail of frozen meat arc so enormous that these* men are* not lilrely to forego them, even if thoy were compelled to buy at the fivoaing stores. As showing what these profits are, a Napier resident, lately in England, told us tho following story : —" I was living at N, a suburb of London, and I went to tho local butcher anil asked him if ho over hnd New Zealand frozen meat." " Oh, yes," he said, "sometimes; here is a piece of a breast, I have had it over a week, so it is not a fair sample." A few days afterwards the butcher .sent word to my house to say that he had got some frozen carcasses. I went down to his shop. Hanging from the outside hooks were five freshly killed sheep, which I took to be a blind, because, ranged all round inside the shop were frozen carcasses, which, of course, were served out to customers before the English mutton was touched. I asked him what he had jriven for tho fro/on meat, he replied, " this lot cost mo (id, but the last I bought was (i.\d." I ordered a fore-quarter, for which I was charged Is per lb ; and while I stayed at N I paid Is 3d per lb for legs and loins." Now, if Mr Nelson does not believe this story, we have permission to ;rive him tho name of our informant, the butcher's n:inu>, and that of the suburb. When retail butchers make over 100 per cent, profit on frozen meat, wo think we were quite justified in saying that butchers make their profits without risk. We will say nothing of middlemen, as Mr Nelson ."ays he can prove the fallacy of our remarks as to their profits. All we know is that tho sheepi'armer makes none.