COLD STORAGE DEPOTS.

New Zealand Herald, Volume XXXIX, Issue 11907, 7 March 1902, Page 4

COLD STORAGE DEPOTS.

The part which cold storage is playing in the civilised world is already very great. It bids fair in the course of a very few years to vie with the granary in supreme influence, over the food supply. Even the South African war has been largely affected by its introduction in alliance with the commissariat, the United Kingdom depends more and more for its fresh provisions upon it, and no ship is now complete without its freezing chamber. The effect has been twofold. It has enabled old and thickly populated countries to. ? get the best use of new and thinly-settled land and it has enabled settlers in the new countries to profit by their serving of the needs of the old. As we are so happily experiencing in New Zealand, articles which only a few years ago were esteemed altogether perishable or only to be preserved in crude and depreciating ways, can be preserved uninjured for long periods and over long distances and placed in prime condition upon the most profitable of markets. Chilling chambers have become a commercial. necessity, so much so that merchants of Bristol, in their, attempt to recover the faded fortunes of that ancient city by the constructions of great new docks at Avonmouth, are making there the largest cold storage depots in the United Kingdom, well knowing the commercial favour which this will bring them. Yet cold storage is still in its infancy. We shall unquestionably see it developed until immense stocks are easily carried and the surplus perishable produce of good and favourable seasons held over to ameliorate the shortness of the bad years. It is not hard to see that from this will follow a great advantage in time of possible war to countries like Britain which have to import their foodstuffs. With huge granaries and vast cold storage depots the United Kingdom could defy for months some unforeseen interruption of its usual supplies and in all civilised countries invading armies may some day strike at the cold storage depots by which their enemies live rather than at the arsenals by which those enemies fight.