THE FROZEN MEAT TRADE.

New Zealand Mail, Issue 1094, 17 February 1893, Page 5

THE FROZEN MEAT TRADE.

In our last issue we dealt at some length with the rise and development of the frozen meat trade and its effect on the prosperity of the colony, as well as, on the quality and quantity of our sheep after the requirements of the freezing companies had been supplied. We also referred somewhat briefly to the many advantages that have accrued to the colonists directly and indirectly in consequence of the very rapid strides which the export of frozen meat has taken during the last half a dozen years. For, beside the very much larger amount of money, which is received in tbe colony in exchange for our sheep, thereby benefiting all classes, there are the many indirect advantages, such as direct and regular steam communication between New Zealand and the Home countries, by which greater and cheaper facilities are offered to tbe travelling public, and goods are landed at our ports at almost as low—if not a lower rate, than they could be taken from London or Liverpool to many inland towns in the United Kingdom. This direct and regular steam communication will undoubtedly have the effect, in the near future, of not alone bringing a large num. ber of tourists to this colony, who will spend their money amongst U 3, and depart from our shores with much higher opinions of our resources, our climate, our scenery, and our social life, than they they had before arriving here, but it will also be the means of introducing to this country a class of settlers, which, of all others, we stand most in need of to-day—small capitalists anxious to take up land. Our dairy industry, upon which so much of our hopes, especially in the North Island, depend, has received a fillip through the meat industry, for it was not until facilities were afforded by the refrigerating chambers on board the direct steamers that the shipping of dairy produce to England became a possibility. There is a very great likelihood too, should the price of frozen mutton maintain anything like a fair average during the next three or four years, that considerable more attention will be given to the breeding of sheep than has hitherto been the case, and also the sheep-farmer, as soon as he sees that there is an established and sure market for his produce, will find it to his interest to so improve his land, that he will be able in many casestomake 'two blades of grass to grow where one grew before.' The shipper of frozen meat to England up to the present has had an up-hill battle to fight. He was met by greed, dishonesty, prejudice, and ignorance on every side. The middleman and distributor practically controlled the Home markets. To offend him was almost as bad as if a person supplicating for mercy from an Eastern potentate insulted the Grand Yizier. The

middleman stood between us and the British public. A word from him was enough to ruin our prospects for years. We were not strong enough to depend on our own resources, as we were met on the threshold of the market by two very powerful enemies—ignorance and prejudice. We had to propitiate the middleman by giving him practically hi 3 own terms. This did not satisfy him, he increased his profits and allayed the prejudice of the buyer by selling our mutton at nearly double the price, as English or Scotch meat. This would not be so bad were it not that some consignments sent Home were not sufficiently good, either by reason of being of inferior quality or being imperfectly frozen, and these were placed on the market as New Zealand mutton, a proceeding which naturally increased the prejudice against our produce. The most radical Englishman is naturally very conservative in his ideas. It takes years to move him, and when he does start, his pace is very sedate and devoid of any appearance of flurry. To ask him to give up the' Koast Beef of Old England,' even if it really consisted, as far as the industrial classes were concerned, of the inferior portions of a very inferior old cow, for even the best of mutton from the Antipodes, which had been killed six week previously, was demanding too much of him. He did not understand freezing; he did not know much about New Zealand or the class of mutton which was grown there. He had a hazy idea that meat killed for such a lengthened period might be very congenial to the taste of the upper-class people, who enjoyed game in an advanced stage of decomposition, but for him it was not the thing. This false impression was not dispelled when he went around to his butcher's and was shown some carcasses of frozen mutton of a most uninviting appearance. The best of the cargo had been sold as home-grown mutton, and these were left as the representatives of the new meat venture from beyond the seas. The retailer did not wish to encourage the public taste for frozen mutton, the margin of profit was not sufficient inducement for him to do so, besides he gained as much by selling one leg of New Zealand as home-grown, as he would by selling half-a-dozen of the former under their true name. The New Zealand producer, too, was handicapped by the excessive charges made for freezing and transport. The freezing and the steamship companies had invested a good deal of capital in the venture, which, after all, might not prove a remunerative undertaking, and under these circumstances, were entitled to a fair return for their outlay. Time, however, has settled any doubts as to the permanency of the industry, and has suggested many directions where economy can be practised without impairing the efficiency of the refrigerating process, either after slaughtering or during transit to the Home market, with the result that substantial concessions have been made to the exporters by both these companies since the initiation of the trade. The margin of profit at present is so small that any depression in the markets of England, caused either through a diminution in consumption or a temporary glut, is likely to eventuate in a loss unless great care is exercised in the shipments. Up to the present this Colony has, to a great extent, monopolised the frozen meat trade, both as regards quantity and quality. Of the 18,000,000 and odd carcasses landed at the ports of Liverpool and London since 1880 we have contributed more than half, and five times more than our Australian neighbours. As our pastoral resources are limited in comparison to those of our great competitor—Eiver Plate—we cannot hope to be able to show such a substantial yearly increase in our output in the future. But, though the South American exporters might be able to place a greater number of carcasses on the markets of the United Kingdom than we can, still they cannot compete with us

in the quality of our mutton, which has been declared to be equal to the average English or Scotch. Some critics have gone so far as to say that it is even as good as the best product of either of those countries. If we cannot increase the number of onr sheep to any great extent, we can, not alone maintain the present good quality of our flocks, but by judicious weeding and breeding materially improve them in the future, Many of our prominent sheep-breeders are evidently alive to the opportunity they have for doing this, for they have made purchases of stud sheep and rams for the purpose both within and without the Colony. Advices received from London towards the end of the year record a distinct improvement in the general quality of the sheep received from New Zealand, which shows that in this respect the Colony has still no equal. It is well that our sheep-farmers should know that the taste of English consumers has steadily altered of late in favour of small, plump, early-matui'ed carcasses as against the large meaty ones which were preferred when the trade commenced. Instead of the 651 b carcass a 581 b one gets preference. The outlets for big fat sheep over 701 b are comparatively few, and the same may be said of indifferent merinos and their crossbreds. The only way in which the New Zealand sheep farmer can maintain his position in the Home market is by improving his flock in the direction required by English taste, then only shipping the best and most suitable, landing his meat in as perfect a condition as it is possible for him to do, and thus showing the consumer that his wishes are studied, and he will in his turn reciprocate the attention by increased consumption.