THE SLANDER ON FROZEN MEAT.

New Zealand Herald, Volume XXXIV, Issue 10419, 17 April 1897, Page 4

THE SLANDER ON FROZEN MEAT.

The attack made on the character of frozen meat by the member for Dorset North in the House of Commons was so obviously spiteful that It is not likely to have any permanent ill results. That frozen meat was valueless as sustenance lias been often enough insinuated, and has had its answer in the experience of consumers • but that it produces cancer in the eating of it is a refinement of ingenuity that has at least the merit of novelty. Whether its originality is to be credited to the honourable member himself, or to some of the bucolic members of the cattle raising district which he represents, if not true, it was at least, to use the Italian phrase, ben trovqto, It was admirably calculated to fan the prejudices of the ignorant and the unreflecting, and to give a weapon to the hand of the oattlo salesmen, whose interest it is to decry the value of the foreign in.port. That the falsehood was deliberately and purposely invented can hardly be doubted, and it only shows the length to which unscrupulous men may go when driven to a corner. Frozen meat and its nutritious qualities were known for ages before it became an article of traffic from the Antipodes, and Canada, to say notliiug of other possibly less advanced denizens of Arcticterritories, have longtaken advantage of fierce winter's frosts to preserve its fresh meats and other edibles throughout the season, Indeed, even the mammoth beasts of antediluvian ages have been dug up in Arotic regions in a frozen state and eaten by consumers, without any ill effect, so far as known, although the flesh had continued in that frozen state from the days when the world whs young. Neither experience nor science had ever discovered the deleterious qualities of frozen meat, till they have been presented in evidence by this mouthpiece of the Dorsetshire farmers. The foul charge was promptly rebutted on the flooi , of the Chamber in which it was uttered; but not unreasonably the' Agents-General in London, as well as Ministers of the Governments in Australia, have deemed it a duty to bring forward formal evidence so as to throw back the malicious aud wanton calumny on its iii ventors. It is doubtful, however, whether colonists generally, and the exporters of frozen meat from these colonies in particular, have not themselves to blame a good deal for the possibility of these unfounded charges against the quality of colonial meat being continued to this day. They have allowed this great and valuable product to tight its own way in the English market, and not infrequently under fictitious representations of its being English meat. The charge laid in the North British Agriculturist that the colonial Governments had connived at this deception is of course an absurd slander, as Governments as well as producers have felt aggrieved at seeing a great staple product put to sucli baso uses, and would have preferred to see the colonial mutton standing on its own merits and under its rightful name. But most of these evils would have been obviated if, as is now so generally urged—and eehoed even by the enemies of frozen meat — retail shops had been opened in various parts of England for the sale of Australian and New Zealand mutton undents own name and in reliance on its own merits. Had this been done its sterling worth would have beaten down prejudice long ago, and until this is generally done, and the people of the Home markets are> brought to prove and fix the character of the colonial article side by side with that pf the much-praised English-grown meats, these baseless misrepresentations will from time to time be putting themselves in evidence. New Zealand mutton should have been made to fight English mutton from the first, hand to hand, and in the, open day, as Victorian butter in its own name has fought and beaten Danish butter in the market, in which the latter product had long reigned supreme. In the same open fight the butter of New Zealand is asserting itself. Retail shops for the distribution of New Zealand meat directly to the hands of consumers, would have been the key to the English market; and it is a curious thing to find that this neglect of duty is now oharged agaitist the Governments and people of the colonies, as having been done or malice prepense, and with the deliberate intention of deceiving and cheating the English'people, aud foisting our mutton on them under the guise of English meat.