FROZEN PRODUCE LETTER

Gisborne Times, Volume XLIX, Issue 4811, 7 March 1918, Page 2

FROZEN PRODUCE LETTER

PROGRESS IN AFRICAN MEAT CONSIGNMENTS.

POOR TRANSIT FACILITIES

LONDON; Dec. 18. Frozen meat is an invisible quantity on the market in these times. As a matter of fact, home meat has also been very scarce lately in the big markets, such as Southfield:, owing to the failure of the regulations so far made by the Food Controller for the purpose of controlling meat supplies. The meat trade is suffering from maximum moat prices fixed at a tune when there are no fixed maximum rates for live stock for civilian consumption with the exception of pigs. The retailers are up in arms, and the wholesalers in the biotowns are also discontented. Nearly all the meat is being marketed at points near to production, and London therefore finds itself short indeed. As to refrigerated supplies, these oi late have been confined to a little Dutch stuff and a small quantity of Argentine and States chilled beef, and some Brazilian sunnlies which have been very welcome but' all inadequate.

YELDT-FED BEEF. Tlie appearance of some fine South African meat on Smithfield last week provided a bright spot in a dreary market, and, incidentally, illustrated the steady progress that South 4fnca is making in the up grade of her meat exports. The quarters of beef shown were said to be quite equal to good ,South American meat. The consignment was made up of 100 head of three to five-yoar-old Shorthorn cattle; and were exhibited at the Johannesburg Show in September last. The exhibit was unique, inasmuch as the cattle were bred and fed entirely on the veldt, showing wliat can be done by careful grading and' management even in area where the rainfall is only about 12in per annum. The cross is Afrikander females and Lincoln Red sires, and subsequently Coates Shorthorns to give equality. The carcases had beeii/carefully handled bv the Central Cold Storage Company, and bore the mark “C.C.S.” The hoof was of good, useful quality and finish, and of the right weight for the London trade. That there was nothing wasteful about it, from a butcher’s point of view, added to its attractiveness. The cattle had been slaughtered and dressed by men who knew their business, and the care that had been bestowed on the beef was evinced by the bloom in which they were shown.

A QUICKLY-FORGOTTEN SCANDAL. Public forgetfulness soon permits a scandal to be forgotten j that is why the loss of the La Blanca, with its 4000 tons of meat, has practically passed out of the public mind. Dreadful tilings are happening daily. The incident, however, may have taught one lesson, and that is, the utter unpreparedness of this country for dealing with heavy or unlikely arrivals of frozen meat. Before I go into this syjiject—it is important to New Zealanders who grow the meat'that we “at home” eat—l just want to nail down to the counters two misstatements uttered in Parliament on behalf of the Government in reply to questions as to the circumstances of the La Blanca’s loss. It was said: (1) That all possible progress was being made with the provision of a cold store at Plymouth (the store lias not even yet been started upon) ; (2) That similar precautions to this were being taken at several other ports. (Not a single projected cold store lias at the time of writing been started or even, as far as I know, finally sanctioned by the Government!) These terminological inexactitudes, of Ministers are very irritating. FREIGHT DIVERSIONS.

However, the La Blanca incident, as I have said, has brought into a strong light our- shortcomings in cold storage. It- is quite on the cards that at any given time the English Channel and North Sea might be closed to all mercantile traffic; and that arriving frozen meat boats might, therefore, have to put into one or more of the Western ports— Cardiff, Swansea, Bristol. Liverpool, or Manchester—up the Ship Canal. As the stores at these places are always at least part full they could not be expected to hold all the arriving meat, and so transit of the meat would have to be made to stores in other centres. What means does the country possess of performing necessary work of this kind?—Practically none. There are actually no more than 2000 insulated railway cars in the whole Kingdom, of a meat capacity of only four tons apiece, and the whole lot of them (which could never be assembled on one job) only hold two shipments' of meat. Besides these there are some thousands of uninsulated covered vans, which are used to convey meat in winter, but in the spring and summer months this would be attended with grave wastage.

LACK. OF REFRIGERATOR CARS

The seriousness of this position was very strongly brough t out in a paper read before the Cold Storage and Ice Association in London last week by Mr A. R. T. Woods, the general manager of the Nelson line, an old advocate of reform in refrigerted transit. Sir Thomas Mackenzie, as president of the Association, was in the chair, and agreed that Mr Woods had made n very strong indictment against the Government on its state of unpreparedness for the necessities of the period. Mr Woods is the designer of the famous Highland boats, the modern refrigerated carriers that run between Argentina and England, and he showed the Cold Storage and Ice Association meeting on the lantern screen several types of improved refrigerator cars he had also devised. Anything he said, would he better than the English type of meat van, which in warm days became an oven. He marvelled at the irony of the' situation which compelled shipowners to be so up-to-date, yet allowed land transit to form. just that fatal weak link in the chain between producer and consumer. Mr Gilbert Anderson said in the course of discussion that followed that the anomalous position was due to the attitude taken up by the British Government, which in case of claim for damage made it incumbent on the complainant to prove that wrong conditions obtained,, whereas in New Zealand the law had made it incumbent upon those handling the meat to institute approved conditions at all points.