What the Frozen Meat Trade is worth to the Country.

Hawera & Normanby Star, Volume IX, Issue 1740, 28 September 1887, Page 2

What the Frozen Meat Trade is worth to the Country.

(Canterbury Press.)

It is worth while just to look for a moment at the industry that is thus " laid for " by the Government. There is always so much talk among a certain class of ill-informed people about " the bloated squatter," that I suppose the Treasurer thought any tax on a sheep industry was sure to be popular. I think he forgot that a very large proportion of the farmers throughout the colony are interested in frozen meat In Canterbury I know that small farmers as well as large ones, send cheep to Belfast ; and, moreover, every man who raises stock at all is benefited by the outlet provided by the Freezing Company ; so I am sure I speak to hearing ears on this matter.

Well, what are the facts? Why, that the frozen meat exported has paid at as high a rate of taxation as anything produced in the country. In annual license fee, property tax, duty on lubricating oil, and stamps on bills of lading, the Canterbury Frozen Meat Company pays .£2OO a year. It pays <£50 road rates on land that before its works were built only paid .£3. The rail and wharf charges on the mutton shipped from Lyttelton amount to 3d per sheep, and are one-serenth of the whole of the Company's expenditure for slaughtering, freezing, and putting on board. The traffic to and from the the Company's siding at Belfast during the year ending March 31st last was £ 7000 nearly, exclusive of the large passenger traffic incidental to the frequent movements of the workmen. •The company's importance as a provider of employment is seen in the fact that it pays .£BOOO a year in wages. Every workman is worth money in taxation to the colony, and there are more of them than are paid wages directly, for the company uses every year 3000 tons of native coal. And when all is over, and the meat is on board ship, the Government still gets a policy duty of Is on every ii JlOOJ 100 of insurance, which is worth something on a total insurance of £ 100,000.

These are the benefits the export of frozen meat confers upon the colony, quite apart from the primary good of finding a market for sheep that would otherwise rot in the farmers' paddock?, useless and unsaleable, and yet it is the frozen meat industry that the Government singles oat for special taxation, approaching them meanwhile with words of encouragement and friendship on their lips. The Stout-Yogel ideas of " encouragement " are unique, and perhaps it is just as well they are.

" Bucmr-PAiBA." — Quick, complete enrs, all annoying Kidney, Hladder, and Urinary Disenerv;. .\t clicunVi ■ and clrn^ista, Kemolliorne, I'ros^ur tt Co., AuciJls Wellington. J