NEW ZEALAND MUTTON FOR AMERICA.

Evening Post, Volume LXXX, Issue 95, 19 October 1910, Page 3

NEW ZEALAND MUTTON FOR AMERICA.

CANTERBURY NOT GREATLY INTERESTED. TRADE UNCERTAIN. [BX TELEGHAPH— SPECIAL TO THE POST.] CHRISTCHURCH. This Day. Sir Joseph Ward's scheme to send shipments of meat and other frozen produce to the Western States of America does not seem to have aroused much interest in Canterbury. Mr. N. L. M'Beth, secretary of the Canterbury Frozen Meat Company, states that his clients have shown no interest in the project whatever. They feel-that there is no reliable information available as to the probable consumption or the time that present prices will continue in America. The American market is regarded as an erratic one, and there is evidently more faith in .the old London market. Mr. W. Murray, secretary of the Christchurch Meat Company, "when conversing on the subject, said that the service evidently was not intended for the South Island, during the first few trips at any rate, as the vessels would depart from Northern ports. He understood that if the trade developed the Union Steamship Company would extend the service to this part of the Dominion, but it was fairly certain that nothing would be done here for some time. Even if a small trade was opened up at present, it was quite impossible to say what amount of business might be done. Another gentltman wjio Js interested in the frozen meat trade, and who does an extensive export business in other directions, expressed an opinion that the scheme will not be a very practical one. He thinks that as America has a hostile tariff, New Zealand should try to obtain better reciprocal relations with Canada, and work up a market there. He suggests that all the Chambers of Commerce in the Dominion should send a delegate to the Western districts of Canada, and also, perhaps, at the same time to the Western States of America, to collect- definite and reliable information, upon which it would be possible to take practical steps. He is not at all sanguine that there is a sound meat market in America even under favourable conditions. He states that most of the population of the Western States is engaged in agricultural and pastoral pursuits, and that people there consume more pork and be-ef than mutton. He does not think that Americans —except perhaps, in San Francisco —want New Zealand meat. In Canada, on theothtr hand, he is confident a small alternative market to the London market could be created.