WELLINGTON NEWS

Hokitika Guardian, 28 May 1929, Page 2

WELLINGTON NEWS

NEW TRANSPORT METHODS.

(Special Correspondent.)

WELLINGTON, May 24. Traders in England who have once used the “container” system never return to other methods of transport, states the “ Railway Newsletter.”

The English railway companies are in . fact experiencing difficult in coping Nvith the demand for containers, and a large number are being constructed in the railway workshops. The container is a box van equally adaptable to transport by road, rail, or sea. Among dther advantages it ensures absolute door-to-door service, reduction in handling costs, minimum loss by damage and minimum loss by tlieft. Goods winch have already been successfully conveyed in containers reveal such widely different, commodities as furniture and confectionery, bricks and flowers, radiators and earthenware. The railways are also collaborating with experts in the meat trade in the production of an insulated container for the transport of meat under ideal conditions. The container operates on terms of equality with the commercial motor vehicle. It is equally mobile, if not more so, in that it is a separate unit from the chassis and it . has the advantage over the motor vehicle that it can also travel by rail. The absolute door-to-door service, which the container enables the railways to offer is illustrated by the case of a container loaded with building materials was delivered to the third storey of a partial-, ly constructed building. The road-rail truck is attracting world-wide attention of all interested in .transport. An international container service between England and the Continent is .an accomplished. fact. The Nor.d Est; and P.L.M. Railways of France 'are building containers of their own, and the lastnamed company has "successfully-oper-ated a container service between Paris and Morocco. The container, has taken a very definite place in railway transport and by means of it the railways are winning traffic back from the roads. A year ago certain railways possessed 350 containers; to-day they own 2000. That is the tangible measure of the success of this now method of tinnsport. ' i■ 1 ti: ■ ■‘; ;

PLACE of WHEAT IN DIET

According to the Ford Research Institute of Stanford University, California, wheat is still the‘l-eutstanding staple food stuff. In most Southern European countries wheat contributes a larger proportion of the total calories of the diet than in the United States, where it contributes' aboUt one-fourth, but in countries where rye ior rice is the staple cereal, the contribution is smaller. Its nutritional proportion in the United States lies primarily in the starch content, not in the content of protein, mineral elements or roughage, bo consume American wheat as wholemeal bread instead of white bread would make no essential contribution to the national health, and would not be in the interest of national economy, at least so long as the present American diet continues to prevail. Protein, minerals, vitamines, and roughage are adequately available in other foodstuffs and need not be sought in whole wheat bread. Nutritional security in the diet is rather to be sought in the milk supply, and perhaps more than an eighth of the milk supply is secured from mill offals of wheat. Removal of the supply of milk offals, with attendant shifts of feed-crop production scarcely appear advantageous. Only in such countries as India and China where the diet is little diversified, are nutritional or economic advantages to be secured by consuming whole grains rather than highly milled grains. Wheat now ranks as one (jif the cheaper foods. Per capita consumption appears to be increasing the world at large, but not in the United States or in Great Britain, Canada and Australia. Under present conditions there is little reason to anticipate increased per capita consumption in America, despite of appeals on behalf of. producers. FROZEN MEAT MADE FRESH. Frozen meat, when defrosted has not tlie appearance of fresh meat' hut British brains have been hard at work to make palatable the famous roast beef of England that has to come from foreign parts. The freezing process necessary to carry the meat dries up all the natural juices. It has been found, however, at the Low Temperature Research Station at Cambridge that when beef is frozen and then thawed very slowly practically no fluid ft lost. In one experiment the time consumed in freezing and thawing took nearly 80 days, at the end of which the meat was scarcely distinguisable from fresh. Attempts are being made to apply this process on a commercial scale.