WHAT ENGLAND REQUIRES.

New Zealand Mail, Issue 994, 20 March 1891, Page 20

WHAT ENGLAND REQUIRES.

At times the incredulous class of this Colony cry out against over-produotion and insist upon their own opinion that if we were to increase our exports of frozen meat and dairy produoe, we should flood the English market. This class of persons cannot possibly have a clear idea of what England can absorb from ns. Some recent returns of the English Board of Trade give some interesting facts concerning the enormous amount of food stuffs imported into Great Britain. The returns before us are made out for each month in the past year. Some months the imports, owing to various causes, are greater than others, but taking the month of Oc. tober last as a general average of the monthly imports, we gather the following figures. During that month the imports from various parts of the world into Great Britain of the class of food we export, were as follows : Butter—ls6,Bß2cwts, of the value of £816,829. Cheese —232,527cwt5, of the value of £550,947. Mutton—lß4.39oowts, of the value of £362,963. Beef—l7o,36Bcwts, of the value oi £359,066. Our exports in the above lines are but drops in the ocean of British trade, especially in butter and cheese, for October is a quiet month in those articles in the Old Country. There is another article of food largely imported into Great Britain, namely, dead rabbits. In October last 22,9840 wt, valued at £64,048, were landed, and this return is below the usual monthly average. This point raises the question, * cannot we endeavour to utilise the vast hordes of rabbits we possess in feeding at least a portion of the teeming millions of England !’ Nearly £BOO,OOO per annum is sent out of Great Britain for dead rabbits. A rabbit will freeze equally well as a sheep. They can be conveyed to London as easily as mutton. There is a demand for them, and the expert ment only wants trying to teat how the English market would take them. The rabbits when frozen could be packed in bags of about the same size as the bags now used for frozen sheep. They would take up the same space, or theieabouts, of the oaroascs of mutton. According to the declared value of the imported rabbits, over fivepence per lb. is paid for them. This is equal to mutton at its best rates. Someone with enterprise should try the effect of a small trial shipment of frozen rabbits. If successful the new industry would benefit the country in two ways. It would bring more money into it and it would thin down what the farmers consider their greatest pest.