NEW INDUSTRIES.

New Zealand Mail, Issue 11, 8 April 1871, Page 9

NEW INDUSTRIES.

An Export Meat Company is being formed in this province, with a capital of £SOOO, in 1000 shares of £5 each. We understand a large number of shares have already been taken up by some of the leading settlers of the Wairarapa and the Hutt, The company intend to buy stock, to boil down sheep, to preserve beef and mutton by such processes as may be found most advantageous, and to turn the refuse, comprising bones, hoofs, horns, oil, and skins to the most profitable account. Though the Boiling-down Company at Featherston has not proved of any direct profit to the shareholders, and though the late lessees of the works lost money in the undertaking, we have the authority of the Inspector of sheep for stating that those works have proved a. great boon to many of the flockowners of the district, by ridding them of their surplus stock, which were unfit for the butcher, and likely to engender disease. This being the case it must have also indirectly proved more or less of a boon to almost every flock owner in the Wairarapa. In like manner the shareholders in the Export Meat Company care less for the direct profits they will derive from its establishment, than for the indirect advantages they will receive from the undertaking when once brought into operation. They will be satisfied if the undertaking should be the means oi securing a moderate interest on their outlay, of opening an additional market for their surplus produce, and of preventing the price of fat cattle and wethers from being so reduced that they could no longer be fed at a profit. Under these circumstances all the company has to ascertain are, whether the proposed undertaking will be able to accomplish that object; whether its operations are likely to be sufficiently extensive and prolonged to visibly and permanently affect the price of meat; and whether, on the whole, it is the cheapest and most efficient means of accomplishing the object they have in view.

It frequently happens that the indirect, are ef more consequence than the direct benefit which accrue from the best devised measures and undertakings. This is a point which should never be lost sight of when considering other measures and proposals, as well as the one immediately before us. The question is not so much what will be the direct as what will he the indirect benefits likely to be conferred by such measures or undertakings. Whether, for example, the construction of the Wairarapa railway would not indirectly, more expeditiously, and cheaply accomplish the purpose the promoters of the Export Meat Company have in view, than they can hope to effect by a more direct course P As we have already observed they have not lost sight of some of the indirect advantages which may result .from their undertaking; but it is at least open to doubt whether that undertaking would answer their object so well as the construction of a railway and the consequent colonization of the country. It must, nevertheless, be also admitted that the indirect benefits they may secure by their undertaking, if carried out in all its integrity, may prove even greater than they have been led to anticipate. Leaving the construction of a railway out of the question, which we only introduced as an instructive illustration of our meaning, we are sure that the promoters of the proposed company will admit that some further information is required, before the public can arrive at the conclusion that the proposed means will secure the desired end, and that no other that could be devised would be so well adapted for the purpose.

In considering the question of preserved meat, as an article of export, the extent of the country, the heat of the climate, and the relative number of the population and stock must be taken into reckoning. The province of Wellington is not like the colony of Queensland, where, we are told, an average run consists of 200 square miles; nor the basin of the River Plate, where cattle roam in millions over a country which has scarcely an inhabitant. The number of cattle to people bears no such proportion in this province; and the difference between the two will be still less as soon as the immigration and public works policy, now being inaugurated by the Government, has been brought into full operation. In the interior of South America cattle are killed for their hides, and in the interior of Queensland fat bullocks can be bought at 80s per head, while fat wethers are almost unsaleable. In that colony, consequently, the preservation of tinned meat for export, the climate being too hot to carry out the salting process satisfactorily, becomes there a question of much more pressing importance than it is ever likely to attain here, where the population relatively is so much greater, and where the salting process, at least so far as beef and pork are concerned, could be successfully adopted. If, therefore, the preserving of fresh meat was the only object of the proposed company we scarcely think it would prove so permanently beneficial, as some persons, from a casual view, of the subject, might suppose. But, as we have already intimated, the promoters of the Export Meat Company, do not intend to confine its operations simply to the preservation of tinned meat for export, but they intend to carry out that undertaking in conjunction with boiling-down and other operations, which, under ordi-

nary management, cannot fail to prove successful. One of the professed objects of the company, is not only to turn the meat which cannot profitably be converted into tallow, but the whole refuse of the works, to the best

account. If they do this, they will probably reap, in addition to the inI direct advantages they expect, others i of equal importance, which they have j not been led to anticipate. To turn ! the produce and refuse of their boilinging down works to the most profitable account, the establishment of other industries in connection with them will be necessary. They will have to feed pigs, cure hams and bacon, salt pork and beef, and manufacture leather, soap, candles, size, glue, neatsfoot oil, bone dust, &c. It may not be necessary that these industries should be under the same management, but it is necessary that they should be carried on in connection with the boiling-down works, if the produce and refuse thereof are to be turned to the best account. These manufactures will give employment to a large number of persons, who in turn would give employment to others, and who, together, would constitute a new market for farm stock and produce, and check, to some extent, that further decline in prices which, without new industries, and in th.e absence of immigration, railways, and public works, would be inevitable. Granting that there is a probability that some of the manufactures above mentioned might not pay at the outset, this, it will be seen, is the case with tinned meat preserving alse; that and them must be judged not by the direct profits they will bring, but by the indirect benefits which will result

from their establishment, and these will prove of the most tangible character. But, as the public generally, and not the company exclusively, would participate more or less in these benefits, the question presents itself, seeing that they would be subject to none of the risk, whether they could not be justly compelled to contribute, through the Government, something towards the cost ? If, as we think, an affirmative answer should be given to this question, it will apply to other manufactures and industries, for which we have the raw material, besides those above named. The Government of an infant colony, to be worth its salt, must interfere, not to check, but to promote individual enterprise and new industries. This, fortunately, is also the opinion of. the Fox Ministry.