Grey River Argus THURSDAY, February 18th, 1932. REFRIGERATION.

Grey River Argus, 18 February 1932, Page 4

Grey River Argus THURSDAY, February 18th, 1932. REFRIGERATION.

With all its significance in New Zealand development, the fiftieth anniversary of the process of refrigeration this week passed with scant public interest, but it recalls the bad times of the early 'eighties when its advent revolutionised our economic destiny. It is 72 years since the world’s first meat freezing works was set up in Sydney by Mr T. S. Mort, whose name is perpetuated in that of the firm of Goldsborough Mort, but the pioneers of marine meat refrigeration were Frenchmen, M. Charles Tellier and M. Carre, who successfully transported cargoes _ between Europe and South America in the 'sixties and 'seventies, after the former invented the ammonia absorption process in the 'fifties. A Melbourne journalist, James Harrison in the 'fifties started a freezing works, but lost heavily, like Mort, when he attempted marine refrigeration. It was at the start of the 'eighties that the process was introduced to New Zealand, the first cargo of frozen meat (3844 mutton carcases, 77 pigs and 24 quarters of beef) leaving Port Chalmers in 1882 by the sailing ship “Dunedin,” and reaching London in good condition 103 days later. Thereafter sailing vessels, such as the “Lady Jocelyn,” “Mataura” and the “Opawa,” continued the traffic well into the 'nineties, but as early as 1882 steamers had taken part, a couple of German-owned vessels being fitted with cool chambers and chartered to take New Zealand cargoes. The Shaw Savill and New Zealand Shipping Companies.then entered the trade, and it is significant that while the first steamers built for the trade in 1883 were insulated for 15,000 carcases, the latest ships built during the last four years, have a capacity of about ten times that number. The fleets of the four lines in the trade between New Zealand and Britain—Shaw, Savill and Albion Co., N.Z. Shinning Co., Federal Line, and Commonwealth and Dominion Line—today number 78 large vessels, with a total insulated cargo capacity of 26,739,674 cubic feet, equivalent to over nine million freight carcases of meat. In addition, the Union Steam Ship Co. has the Aorangi, Niagara and Limerick, which have a combined capacity of 516,240 cubic feet. The world to-day has nearly 1400 ships with refrigerating machinery, the great majority British, including over 200 in the Australian and New Zealand trade, with a capacity for over 14 million carcases. Our exports in 1882 were worth £19,339, while in 1920 their value was over eleven and a-half millions, but falling prices _ gave scarcely nine millions sterling last year for 4,1388,000 cwt. compared with 4,625,000 sent in the peak year. Australia’s first frozen ineat cargo went Home in 1879 by the steamer “ Strathleven, ” whose voyage was historic, and drew New Zealand attention to the possibilities of the process. The result is that last year our refrigerated shipments were worth twenty-five millions out of a total export of thirty-five millions. When the process began our sheep flocks numbered eleven millions whereas last year 10,300,000 lamb and mutton carcases were exported, and yet the increase of exports has never lent colour to the fear that it would seriously deplete the flocks. What gave the trade a great impetus was the rising price of meat in Britain, where it averaged in 1880 Bfd per lb., compared with 4|d thirty years before. On the other hand in these countries carcases were largely wasted after the tallow had been extracted, there being in 1850 110 boiling-down establishments in Australia, 800,000 sheep, and 73,000 cattle being slaughtered for the tallow, skin? and hides. Then take our dairying export industry, worth £15,000,000 a year, is dependent on refrigeration, and also the fruit export trade likewise circumstanced. Last year there were 36 freezing works in the Dominion.

The first works were those set up at Burnside, Dunedin, by the N.Z. Refrigerating Coy in 1881, in which year also the Canterbury Frozen'Meat Coy., Nelson Bros., of Hawke’s Bay, and the Wellington Meat Export Coy., began. In the next year the Gear Coy. started. The N.Z. Refrigerating Coy., Ltd., which owns six big freezing works in the Dominion, and which in 1905 absorbed the original Dunedin firm of that name, was founded in 1888 as the Christchurch Meat Company Ltd. The company was really started in the interests of the small farmer who I could not afford to consign his j meat to London, or whose stock | available for freezing was not considerable enough for him to undertake exportation. The Longburn works began in 1895, and the Auckland Farmers’ Freezing Coy in 1903. Latterly there is reason to fear that the international meat trade monopolists have been gaining a hold in the country, and it is not clear that the Meat Export Board has meant the slightest check to .such development. Although the process of marine refrigeration began with meat, its extension to dairy pro- | duce has given those commodities i an even greater importance for this country. Latterly the trade identified with the process has required an increased production, owing to lowered values, in order to-prevent too serious a drop in revenue, but the not distant future may see the transportation problems of our exporters lessened through improved processes. Refrigeration has certainly enabled Canterbury lamb to demontrate overseas its superiority to any other variety competing on .similar terms, and it has done much to give our butter second rank on the world market, while it facilitates our cheese trade on which the Old Country to-day relies for a greater proportion of its supply than upon the production of any other country. To understand what a part the invention has played in the development of New Zealand it is only necessary to try and imagine the aspect of the country if it could not send away any butter, cheese, or meat, not to mention fruit. Where there are now a dozen farmers there would have been scarcely one, and we might have yet had no direct shipning service to the Old Country,.. and been dependent upon lines running to Australia. However, just as times were bad 50 years ago, so, despite the mechanical arts, are they now, and it may be that a recover-'- will be assoeii ated with some fresh advance in those arts which will land our produce anywhere in even better condition than the process of refrigeration.