The Lyttelton Times. TUESDAY, DECEMBER 2, 1884.

Lyttelton Times, Volume LXII, Issue 7413, 2 December 1884, Page 4

The Lyttelton Times. TUESDAY, DECEMBER 2, 1884.

Thb frozen moat trade m London consists of throe things—receiving, thawing, and disposal. The first in* eludes, of course, the great problem of storage, which is not yet solved; the second, which ought to be universal, is'not much practised ; and the third is in a vorv unsatisfactory condition.. To improve this state of things, the impulse must come from this end. The shippers must combine. The importers in London will not be easily moved, we fancy, out of the old groove. They have had time to move themselves, and they have re* maincd stationary. Clearly, there must be a union of producers j if any improvement is to be j effected. The time for union is most fitting, for the trade is showing an improvement, which a supreme effort, well directed, is sure to make permanent. The tide has turned; all that is wanted is for the boats to be set going in the direction of the fortune, which means a certain market for all the possible produce of the Colony at a maximum remunerative price, and a minimum of reasonable charges. It is urged, we regret with some show of truth, that the great difficulty iu the wav of union is the tendency to mutual jealousy, which makes the produce rs of different d istricta look askance at each other. No one likes to take the lead, for fear of offending somebody who lives in another part of the country. The office of toll-the-cat has met with the antipodean fate of being dangerous, not on account of the cat, but on account of the combination of the rats. At Mr Peter’s meeting in London, which did good service in the reduction of dock charges, great offence was. we have been informed, given to some of the Otago men then in London; or rather, to put it exactly, was taken by the Otago men. All this is no doubt true to a certain extent; there is a great deal of human nature in it. But for the credit of New Zealand we hope that a good scheme of united action has only to be made public to secure the support of all the producer* whose interests after all are identical. Australian co-operation is not desirable. for the obvious reason that the produce of New Zealand pastures, being a different thing to the produce of there of Australia, should be kept entirely separate. New Zealand prefers to go to London on its own merits, and New Zealand, we fee! confident, is ready to ''prevent injury to those merits by any policy of What is. the nest uniting medium ? A Joint Stock Company, lor the receiving, storage, and disposal of New Zealand produce, to act as brokers or consignees, as may lie necessary, would to a very good uniting medium. The storage involves the question of site, upon which depend the expenses of transit, and a more serious consideration, the risk of damage. The second will be got rid of by having a proper thawing chamber. Experience lias proved two things First, the meat at the Bocks is, to some extent, spoilt by carelessness, unavoidable, perhaps, but not the law fatal; and, second, that frozen meat bung up and exposed, while thawing, to a blast of dry air retains its juices, and is therefore in first-rate condition, both as to colour, firmness, and for cooking purposes. By having a proper ret of thawing chambers at the stores, the Company will be able to keep its meat free from all danger, and to supply it in all weather of uniform good quality. If the stores are in a position convenient for general access, there will be nothing to Ik* desired in the matter of storage. The meat can not of course be delivered from the stores in better condition than it is received. If itarrive# in first-rate order, it will, under the improved system we are proposing, to kept in first-rate order. If it does not -but that is a contingency which the frozen meat trade ought not to know. Tendency to go wrong on the voyage there 1 ought not to to. Any tendency in that direction which may to doveloped can to cured by some system of inbato of freights, according to a o&ul tinted scale to to enforced in case iSr of preventive m«ideat». As W other kind are of the fewest, the UiacSe ought to to kept practically by the graduated scale of reTto moat important of the quests,«» affecting the meat trade i» the Station rfdinrtrt In August (hurt. there were in all the seven portal .districts of the metropolis twenty-one butchers’ shops selling New Zealand mutton—this does not include Smith-

fii'hl or l/wU s n!mll nutrirat*. The great obnim’b?, the retail bubftluwa ihetiwelvre affirm we haw it on the authority of ft gentleman who, having csamimMi the trade from one end to the other, has ghtml hitt notes ul ot»r disposalis the want of ft regular supply at a fair rate. In London there is room for ten retail shops in each postal district, or seventy in alt. lint were regularity of supply guamntwd, there would not, the trade thinks. Is* any difficulty in extending the prcwent number of shop to ftO, doing a business of 100 sheep ttplew isT week, or irn annual business in the aggregate of 2(50,000 eareuses. This could las done by a system of special armng|meut« with butchers tlmuighout the mctm|K>U» for regularly supplying meat from the stows and thawing rooms of the Company; giving meat in its frown slate only to those who may have had the enterprise to put up thawing rooms for themselves. By connecting the large nmmifactoring centres with the system, the steady demand could of course bo enonnously increased. It is thought that to fix a price would greatly stimulate the trade. It has been ascertained from reliable sources that the average price paid by the butchers for English carcase mutton throughout the year ending June, 1884, was 8d to !KI. say B|d. for the finer qualities, and for the coarser and heavier sorts one penny less, or an average of 7|d. If the bold course were adopted of fixing the price for New Zealand mutton between fid and 7d per lb, the quality, under the improved conditions, being at least equal to the English, its sale would bo assured. This would give a great impetus to the sale of our best merino and halfbred stock. Whether the price bo fixed or not, one great merit of the system would be avoidance of the charges, the competition of frozen New Zealand against ffozon New Zealand, which * characterise the Smithfiold and Leadenhali markets, whore those hostile vested interests, so well described by the Chairman of the Chamber of Commerce the other day, have their stronghold. If a Company comes forward to offer these advantages—centra! convenient storage, properly regulated thawing before delivery, and sale upon a system guaranteeing regularity of supply and fixity of price—that Company will deserve the general support of the stockowners of New Zealand* In this way, and in this way alone, will the Colony realise that union is strength.