THE MEAT QUESTION.

Evening Post, Volume LXXI, Issue 135, 8 June 1906, Page 5

THE MEAT QUESTION.

POSITION HERE AND ELSEWHERE NOTES AND COMMENTS/ THE LICENSING QUESTIO& For the conduct of meat-export slaughterhouses and public abattoirs tlie Government has imposed stringent conditions. The killing, dressing, and hanging places must be floored with concrete or other material approved by the inspector and thoroughly ventilated. They also stipulate that the walls shall leave no room for the accumulation of filth, there must be an ample watersupply, instruments, trollies, and other apparatus must be kept thoroughly clGan, the races leading to the killingplaca must bo paved. Then, too, them is the exhaustive inspection. In these respects the large establishments do their duty,, but the smaller slaughterhouses seem to escape lightly. The largo companies supplying a par^ ticular local market have to comply with regulations making for healthfulness, their meat has to carry Government approval, but other slaughtering institutions sending goods to the sama market practically follow a policy of their own. The branding of the number of the slaughterhouse on a carcase, though it commits the proprietor, ia scarcely a safeguard for the public. These private places are subject to inspection, but the scrutiny might bn closer, with advantage. Under powers given by the Legislature a municipality may build ait abattoir at which butchers supplying meat to the local markets must hava their stock slaughtered. Christchurrh, Dunedin, and other New Zealand towmi have taken advantage of the Act, so that the people in those settlements have the satisfaction of knowing thai all their meat has been passed by competent inspectors. Wellington, however, the capital city, lags behind. If further spur ib needed to stimulate the authorities here* it may b<» > found in a reference to Australia. In the Commonwealth's large cities— Syd^ ney, Melbourne, Brisbane — th© people can cat their meat without fear of any fell disease, in greater security, p.B tho remarks of Mr. W. W. C Quinnell, M.R.C.V.S., will show. He was under the New South Wales Government fop two _ and a-half years, and was in tho service of Queensland for seven and ahalf years. A couple of years ago, when tho retrenchment scheme camo into operation, he accepted an offov from the New Zealand Government, and' has been engaged as an inspector hero over since. .Melbonrne, say's Mr. Quinnell, has thai finest system that •he knows for tho inspection of meat for local consumption. The city has twenty-nine abattoirs, including only two private houses, and all meat has to be passed by inspectors before it can be noaft to market. In Sydney all tho slaughtering is done in a public abattoir on Glebe Island, and, of course, the meat has to be passed by inspectors before it -can be consigned to the shops. Ijj, Brisbane the slaughterhouses are private, but the meat has to be forwarded! to depots for direct inspection by public officers. Under the Slaughtering Act in Queensland there is a special licensing; bench for all slaughterhouses. Reports on these establishments are submitted by the various authorities, like tho Board ot Health, the Local Board, arid! so on. Thns a man gets a license fora year, if the reports are favourable, or may be refused a license, or get. only a provisional license, according to circumstances. Practically the slanghJ erm S Kcensing is on a par with tha IScw Zealand system of liquor licensing. It is considered that the system de> tailed by Mr. Quinnell conld bo advantageously applied to vtb.e issue o£ dairy and slaughterhouse lifcenses alike, if the public are to be adequately pro', tected, m the absence of municipal in. stitutions for tho supply of meat and In dealing editorially with the Chicago meat scandal the Christchurch Press says :— "Wo know that the frozen meat sent out of this colony ia unequalled in tho world for high-claaa quality. We know, too, that all the factories are qnder careful Government inspection, and that there is every rea« son to believe that the tinned mead sent out is absolutely beyond, suspicion, ami prepared under the strictest con"-' ditions of cleanliness. Why should riofe New Zealand reap the full benefit of the scrupulousness which has, been ob» sei'vea m those respects? Our burro's-. toon is that Mr . Gilruth, whoso namo is sufficiently well known to carry Bomo weight in England, should bo asked to pvepare an official report detailing thn precautions taken, and stating how far 1? *« - . opi Si on ' tKese precautions 'ard InfSw 1? ? T P° rt , s£ ° uld be cable( * in full to England and givon tho widest possible publicity. We would go even further, and secure, if possible, a small independent commission to examine and rpport on the conditions of the meat, canning industry, so that their conclusions might be published." The Master Butchers' Association met last evening to discuss tihe position- but apparently they discovered no reason to be uneasy or alarmed at Mr F T Moore's statements. Questioned by » Post Teportsr this morning, Mr. W. J. Garrett, the president, said the butchers considered they had really nothing ia answer. Supplementing what) he said! yesterday, he only desired to point out. that the largest retail butchers who had sausage-making machines dn tiheir premises were registered under tho FactoriesAct and were regularly inspected, by Government officers. It should also be< remembered that many retailers in the city had no slaughterhouses of their own At the next meeting of th© Lower Hutt .Boroueh Council the Mayor (Mr. T. W. -M'Donald) will move, "That under authority of section 5 of the Slaughtering and Inspection Act, 1900 the Petono Borough Council b© invited to co-operate with the Hutt Borough Council ib the establishment of an abattoir for the valley, and that the Hutfc Cdunty bk asked to sanction that portion of the county south of the railway bridge at Silverstream being inelud-'. Ed in th© abattoir district.