THE New Zealand Herlad AND DAILY SOUTHERN CROSS. WEDNESDAY, JANUARY 28, 1836.

New Zealand Herald, Volume XXXIII, Issue 10034, 22 January 1896, Page 4

THE New Zealand Herlad AND DAILY SOUTHERN CROSS. WEDNESDAY, JANUARY 28, 1836.

A great and grave question lias arisen amongst insurance underwriters about frozen mutton going bad so constantly of late.. One large firm of underwriters, in a communication just received, raises a serious question about charcoal being used for the insulation in freezing vessels. They say:— We enclose you copy of the figures, by which you will see that there must be something wrong with the meat'during the present year, for it is not one steamer that has gone wrong, but almost every steamer and every ship. We ask ourselves is it possible that the charcoal used for the insulation has become impaired and worn out, and impregnated with the germs of fungus, which can be imparted to the meat?" The circumstances referred to here, whether the suggested explanation of it is right or wrong, has become a serious thing in relation to the export trade in frozen meat, and when we consider the importance which in New Zealand attaches to this enterprise the subject is one that demands very searching investigation. Although the number of carcases shipped from the colony has been steadily increasing from year to year, and the costs of manipulation and of transport have been obtaining the benefits of experience and ingenuity and competition, the price of frozen mutton in London has been going steadily down, until the enterprise is approaching a point at which loss rather than remuneration is to be expected. And it is not merely the actual but the relative price that is to be noted in connection with this gradual decline, for while New. Zealand mutton ranges from 3sd per pound for best to 2d for inferior classes, English mutton realises 7d, and sometimes more, per pound.

Now this being so. it becomes a question of the first importance what may be the cause or causes contributing to this, so that if possible the evil may be combated. It h admitted that the quality of the sheep before freezing has in no way deteriorated, nor is there less care bestowed on selecting and freezing. Some of the blame may attach to the accumulation of stooks in New Zealand mutton in London at times when English mutton may be affeoting the markets, and the state of the stocks compels sales, and consequently injurious competition-the remedy for which might be found in more judicious

dealing with 'the market. But a mote subtle reason, and one apparently more uniformly acting, is in tho inferior condition in which the mutton arrives, M compared with the prime state in which it arrived in former times. There appear to be frequent complaints of loss of " bloom," and of the appearance on the meat of mildew incipient or developed, and these frequent appearances seem to be largely responsible for the fact that New Zealand mutton has fallen to a steady relative price of about half of that obtained for English mutton. It has been supposed, and not now for the first time, that these appearances may be due to the presence of charcoal in the insulation. Every steamer hitherto engaged in the trade, and every cool chamber in London, use the charcoal insulation, and if, as suspected, charcoal has a teudency to the production of germs or microbes, it is quite sufficient to account for the phenomena. That this is so is the distinct opinion of Sir James Hector, who in his evidence last year before the Committee of the Legislative Council at Wellington, after referring to charcoal as tending to spontaneous combustion added that "charcoal is a deodoriser, but not a disinfectant—that is, it absorbs and retains any germs of putrefaction without destroying them, and thus may become a 'nidus' (breeding ground) for the propagation of germs that may taint the meat. For this reason, when the moat-freezing trade was started I strongly urged the use of calcined pumice, instead of charcoal, as being quite as good a nonconductor and absolutely safe." This constitutes a very serious charge against the present nearly universal practice of employing charcoal for the insulation of cold and chilled chambers, in which not only mutton but dairy produce is frozen and stored in transport, and it is hardly less serious than the danger now fully known to exist in the liability of charcoal to set ship 3 on fire through its tendency to spontaneous combustion. The effect of germs in producing putrefaction, is of course fully established, and as charcoal is a large absorber of oxygen, and the abundant .presence of oxygen increases the production of deleterious germs, it must in process of time render unfit for human food substances such as mutton, or butter that has been carried in steamers or stored in cool stores in close proximity to charcoal insulation. It is needless to say that on this theory the chambers and stores so used must become increasingly energetic in the transmission of putrefactive germs the longer they are in use, and that altogether the use of charcoal for this purpose ought to be abandoned. If there were nothing so conveniently and easily obtainable to take its place, the 'evils incident to its use might have to be borne, as insulation is of course a necessity. But now that pumice, purified and prepared for the purpose, and confessedly free from both inflammatory and putrefactive tendencies can be provided at scarcely greater cost, and in abundance, it seems little short of criminal negligence to allow a great enterprise to be further needlessly imperilled. Any way the subject is one that ought to receive the most trenchant investigation, so that a product which promises so much for this colony may obtain again and retain the high character in the English market to which New Zealand mutton is entitled.