Meat for the Million.

Hastings Standard, Issue 307, 27 April 1897, Page 4

Meat for the Million.

Mr Chas. Cooper, editor of the Edinburgh Scotsman, who recently toured New Zealand, sends his first colonial letter to that journal as follows :

Soon after I landed here a most genial gentleman (he was a bowler, which proves his geniality) said to me, " I am glad you have come first to Wellington, for it is the worst place in New Zealand, and after seeing it you will enjoy the other towns much more." It is not for me to dispute his accuracy. Wellington may not be as attractive as other places in this country, but it seems to me to be a most pleasant city. It is essentially British. The people all show their British origin. Their speech bewrayeth them ; and they never fail to indicate their British origin in their walk and conversation. It is a busy place. The lovely harbor is dotted with ships. The quays are all occupied. Work goes on with great activity in the midst of a kindly flavor of tar, which to me is infinitely delightful. Of the Government institutions, of the University, of the progress of life insurance, and of many other things, I may write hereafter. At present-, having first acknowledged the cordial hospitality of the Wellington Club and the Wellingtonians generally, I want to tell of a visit I have to a manufactory of mutton. Everybody knows that frozen mutton comes in large quantities from New Zealand to the British markets. So people know that tinned cooked mutton comes from the same quarter. Few people know, or can know, the extent and character of the trade. There is literally meat for the million here, and the millions at Home ought to get it—good, wholesome meat —at a price less than is usually paid for mutton.

The Wellington Meat Exporting Company is one of several large manufacturers of mutton for consumption in New Zealand and at home. There is another company—the Gear Company—at Wellington. There is, lam informed, another at Islington, near Christchurch ; and another, also in the same locality, at a place called, I think, Belfast. The processes of manufacture are very much alike in all of them. Thanks to the courtesy of Mr Sladden, manager of the Wellington Company, I have seen over the works in Wellington and at Ngahauranga. The works in the city are simply freezing w r orks. At Ngahauranga the sheep are slaughtered, •mutton is canned, carcases are frozen, and the residue of the dead sheep is converted into manure, while the skins are fellmongered. A more careful and efficient adaption of means to the end in view than is to be seen at Ngahauranga it would be difficult to conceive. From first to last nothing is wasted ; everything is done in the most systematic manner, and the products are of the best.

The process begins, of course, with the slaughtering of the sheep. In a large abattoir thirty slaughtermen are at work. Each takes four sheep at a time. The killing is done in the most scientific manner. On the day I was there 2500 sheep and lambs had been or were being slaughtered. Each carcase is weighed, and is passed along an iron bar to a point where a skilled supervisor decides to what class they belong. I should not like to hold the position of that supervisor. Blood and butchering are not in my way. The sight of a little of them is enough for me. But custom is everything ; and doubtless the supervisor and classifier takes his business as a matter of course, with no more repugnance than the ether workmen show to the odour of cooked meat which pervades most of the establishment. After he has classified the carcases they go, almost automatically, to a house with open lofty roof and sides that admit the air. It is situated on a bluff, upon which beats the strong wind that almost continually blows. The result is that the carcases are cooled to the required point without any but absolutely clean and wholesome surroundings. At this point the object of the classification is realised. I fancy that there is an impression at home that only the poor mutton is frozen for export. There is no ground for this belief. Only the small carcases are frozen. It would not do to freeze heavy and very fat sheep ; but the small mutton is the best. It happens that many of the sheep are large. They are of the Lincoln and Romney breeds, and many of them weigh dead over ninety pounds. These are not frozen. Some of them are called "green meat," and are sold for home consumption. Residents in Wellington have complained # to me that the best mutton goes home, and only the excessively fat mutton comes to them. In truth, they get only a small part of the fat sheep. Most of it is cut up for canning. Here again it is necessary to distinguish. The carcases that are not meant for the Wellington market are cut up for canning, but all the fat parts are cut away, and only the best of the lean meat is tinned. The legs are frozen in all cases save where they are required for consumption in the colony. The fat part is boiled for the tallow, and from the liner part of it the basis of oleo-margarine is expressed. This latter is a beautifully clean process. The fat is washed down shoots in clean water to a mincing mill. Thence, having Ixvn mi need, it goes—still waterborne—to digesters. Then comes the expressing process, which produces a tine cream-colored liquid that soon congeals in the casks in which it is to be export**!. I am told that large quantities of it are used for the manufacture of Anwrian lard. I believe it yields stearine and other product which t,-oes int'> margarine. The arinr. with a mixture of cotton seel osl, makes t American lard.

For the making of tall.sw there are many appliance. Th<- iliL_'---tcri=, the vats, the classification of the tallow, th- I • t f i: all things are provided l'or vi;u r.aily wuaderfui in-

genuity. Ono process leads to another with perfect regularity. There is no waste. The small quantities of grease that escape at one point or another are carefully collected and washed and pumped into their place by a pump of American origin, which does wonderful work. Meantime, the blood, the heads, the feet, the oflal of the sheep have been treated in digesters, and finally come with the residue of the tallow-boiling process to be converted into manure. The result is a fine odourless brown powdery compound, which finds a market both in the colony and at home as a manurial agent of great value. (To be concluded in our next).