RESTRICTED MEAT EXPORTS

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXXVIII, Issue 23880, 3 February 1941, Page 9

RESTRICTED MEAT EXPORTS

Sir. — The present restriction on meat exports to Great Britain and the consequent, necessitv to accumulate meat stocks in cold storage in New Zealand may prove to be a wise precaution and a blessing in disguise. A surplus of meat stocks is being built up in New Zealand at a time when there is an ever-growing meat scarcity in Europe, it is this meat scarcity in war-stricken countries, that lowers the stamina of the inhabitants against the ravages of epidemic disease. Moreover, Australia is not likely, for some time, to be in the same fortunate position as New Zealand to accumulate her meat stocks, because of.the severe prolonged droughts, now followed by heavy rain and floods. Indeed, this succession of climatic disasters may yet lead to a serious epidemic of cattle disease in Australia. Praemonitus praemunitus. It has been suggested that both shipping space and tonnage could he economised, by canning the New Zealand meat instead of freezing it and storing it in ships' refrigerators. This would he an excellent suggestion, provided adequate future supplies of tinplate are assured. But are they? Would it not be a better plan to strip the carcases of bone and fat, and dry or desiccate and compress the lean meat to form peinmicau, which, if kept dry, lasts indefinitely and can he packed in cases. The saving in both shipping hold space and tonnage would he B0 per cent, because only 20 per cent of the weight of the carcase of a sheep is lean meat, the rest being water and bone. Why export this water and bone to Great Britain? Thomas A. F. Stonic.