Frozen Meat Trade.

Daily Telegraph (Napier), Issue 6313, 25 November 1891, Page 3

Frozen Meat Trade.

[to tub editoe 1

Sib,—Your article on the above subject in your Saturday's issue leads me to suppose that you do not realise its enormous iraportanco to the whole colony at the present moment. It is essential to the future of our trade that it should bo clunrly understood -where the fault lies. You fix it in a certain quarter ; I don't agree with you, and by your leave I shall argue the point on the ground of public interest. But first I would like to 3ay," Sir, that I wish you wouldn't accuse me of evaeion. I have been fairly •well known to a large number of your readers, as well ag yourself, for many years, but never heard it suggested that I was guilty of evasion—rather the reverse. I ■would also like to say that in a discussion of this nature one must of necessity be open to the charge of egotism, but I think that in the matter of the frozen meat trade it mar fairly be conceded to me that I havo the"opportunity of being as well informed as any man in the colony, and better than most.

You say " there are few New Zealanders who have'returned from a visit to England who have not told queer stories of that same British-butcher." Has not everyone been telliiig queer stories about everybody else dfttfng from the d;iys of Adam ? Have we "~W5t heard of the grocer who is reported to sand his sugar ; the draper who sells calico full of clay; tho Freezing Company -which supplies Conroy and Co. with bad meat; -the Freezing Company that ships soft mutton, &3., &o. ? Now the simple fact of these assertions being made does not prove •them to be true, however often they may be repeated, and though in each case there may ■be partial truth, a very large lie is implied. Just boil down all the yarns which reach us about the iniquity of the British butcher, and whut does it amount to ? Why at the worst that out of many thousands of butchers there are a few scoundrels, but it has been proved that even they have any power to materially injure the meat trade ; to some extent no doubt they do, but to a very email one compared with other features of the trade. Some years back, when freezing companies ■were not 80 numerous as now, the honors in the iniquity race were about evenly divided between the freezing companies and the British butcher, but now that freezing companies are more numerous, they are out '-- of the running altogether, and tha British butcher has the fi'jld to himself, and prices are lower than ever. Again, why should not the British butcher sell his mutton as he likes? I aßsume he buys it in the open market, and pays for it; it is then his own property, and ha can do as he likes with it. If he sells it m prime Scotch he may be imperilling the permanent rest of his soul— that is his business —but I can't see how the New Zetland producers' interests are adversely affected. The higher price at which the meat is retailed the higher price can the retailer afford to give for it. As a matter of fact, there are very few towns in England in which there are not frozen meat ishepa pure and eimple. Nelson Bros have and distribute meat from the following centres:—Birmingham, Cardiff, Leeds, '(Liverpool, Manchester, Newcastle, and From these centres a very large rarea of thickly populated country is worked, aad doubtless more may yet be done. bn\ the age of the trade, those engaged in it have not been idle. I must now quote the last eight lines of your article. "If somewhere about half the mutton sent Home ia, as Mt Nelson says either • utter rubbish' or unsuitable to the market, how is it that the prices quoted do not show a corresponding difference ? Utter rubbish and unsuitable meat appear to find buyers, and to fetch prices within a fraction of that obtained for what i 3 termed best Canterbury." I wonder why you wrote this ?—and abould any of your subscribers pay me the compliment of reading this effusion, I will ask them to pay .special attention to thia part. It strikes me -you must have credited me with a very ' wron" motive for my last letter, or else you ,must'have a very different standard for the value of fractions than I have. During the ipast six months something like a million of New Zealand sheep have been sold at pvicee {for sound sheep) ranging from 2Jd to did, the rai)t--e of prices on iiidmdu-tl ohipmeuta beinf from to 4J-d, or "a fructioual difference" of l§d. Why, Sir, ia the very same issue in which your article appears — your cable quotations) are Canterbury <l£d, Wellington 3f d, thus showing a difference ' of id between the two ports, presumably L forwether mutton; and as at present old mutton is selling Id below wethers, I JvLt you must allow that the fraction is . r^ t bo trifling as your article would lead many of your readers to suppose. Mr F Nelson (who was resident in -Hawke'sßay for twenty years, and now . Sendß the greater part of his time in the dffietoßt of the frozen moat trade) writes me —" The market is eimply overdone with old'ewes and light and heavy weight sheep. River Plate, Sydney, and Queensland more than supply the requirements for small mutton, and the very heavy New Zealand sheep are simply unsaleable except in very limited numbers, but we can sell any number of sheep weighing from 551b to 6olb at a good price. Our trade requirements are two-thirds of such weights to one-third of other weights, whereas the proportions are iart reversed, and we only got one-third of what must always be first-class weights. I recommend you to aend Home no sheep over 701b if you cau possibly avoid it, and old ewes, if sent at all, must be very prime and iv limited numbers. I also recommend you to pay more attention to grading ; it is of utmOßt importance that any brand of mutton should be exactly what it purports to be ; ltehtand heavy weights should not be together; maiden ewes separate from -Aethers; and no old ewes among the ' ra The n substance of this extract has been ' written to me eever»l times by our London Xc manager, and I am so impressed with ut necpssiyof carrying out the trado on /S*» line" that 1 have decided in future not / fX; a Bin «le sheep over 751b, and no old ~\ to ship awn r q of the egt ewMOvet 6010, din , lteep i Q to T y :J Td IMb standard will be adhered «en classes, and v Zealaud from wh ich to at every pert iu-"e M e ship I ■^rfTm y thX recover the position it " Ze £U f, tha trado, a position which may once held "\ 1 ?*, thr ' all time if only *aßily .be fttoatf S der h . B aßßiatance the sheepfa. tm' J£ l ibß hy growiug the to tho freezing eopiP h . pd viz a 55 now stop, sixty per eeutofwhi c 76 to 1251b, and the bum: j> of over 65.1b. Luld sell their stock these sheCP J b ** Jjj r ? h «e increasing their several yearJ y° u ,?« ' x wiU , in conclusion, own and our p. on ' . hink i have written ask you, Sir, not n f or the Bake of this atrociously long J ftrt i c i Oj but because quarreling with your . Q to be]p t h e I am, etc., Y/-. NkISOH.