THE New Zealand Mail. PUBLISHED WEEKLY. FRIDAY, MAY 17, 1895. FROZEN MUTTON.

New Zealand Mail, Issue 1211, 17 May 1895, Page 22

THE New Zealand Mail. PUBLISHED WEEKLY. FRIDAY, MAY 17, 1895. FROZEN MUTTON.

It is our greatest industry at present, and is likely to be so for years. It began with rejoicings. “There came a gallant merchant ship full sail ” —it was the Dunedin, especially prepared at Glasgow with a freezing plant. We all remember the story of that most eventful voyage, and we have not forgotten the chorus of astonishment, delight, and prophecy that went up from a hundred newspapers thankful for “ copy ” when the gallant merchant ship aforesaid reached the London docks. The trade thus established took a tremendous start; steamers swarmed in our ports, and New Zealand went at one stride to the leading place, and has kept it ever since. Money has been made in it, and lost in it; we have had agitations for branding, and tirades against the dishonest middleman and the fraudulent British batcher. We have seen cold stores arise as if by magic, and improvements in freezing machinery have been showered upon us, likewise a thawing patent. Dinners, dejeuners, deputations have not been wanting; in fact, all the world has come to regard the frozen mutton trade of New Zealand as one of the soundest and most progressive things of the century. Yet the producer of mutton is far from satisfied. He is, in fact, very dissatisfied. When he gets his account sales, .he fails to find in them any reflex of the popular enthusiasm in his regard. And no wonder! The English market reports tell him from week to week of increasing accumulations and decreasing prices. “ The situation is still unrelieved by any sign of better times for shippers of mutton and lamb from Australasia.” That is the sort of thing that has become grimly monotonous. “ Stocks remain heavy, while the retail demand is quite devoid of its usual animation at this season.” That is what the frozen meat report of the British Australasian had to say about the matter on the 28th March. It added a significant fact, which all concerned should ponder in their anxious minds. “There is a splendid chance,” said this fateful document, “ just now for butchers to make tremendous profits by buying frozen mutton and selling it as English, but the curious thing is that there is no rush at all to take advantage of the opportunity, even with best Australian mutton at 2fd, best New Zealand at 3 id, and English 7 id to 8d per lb.” We read that agents in London have discovered, and proclaimed their discovery, that not more than 5 per cent, of the frozen meat import is ever sold as English, and we are asked to believe, with apparently most accurate logic, that the absence of any rush for frozen meat under the above conditions, which ought, if there is a bad practice on an extensive scale, to be a strong inducement to extend that bad practice, is a fairly strong corroboration of this opinion of the agents. It is, we are aware, the general belief among the producers that their woes are due in large measure to the bad practice aforesaid. But if the report we have quoted is correct in \ its views, there is a less easy method of accounting for the downfall of the market. Producers must .cease to hug an idea which gives them a cheap solace. The matter is more serious than a mere difficulty, not insuperable,of correct brands. The fact they have to face is that for some reason the trade in colonial frozen mutton is in a rotten state. It is for them to get the truth from those who are paid by them to push the trade, and w r lio do not seem to be able to do that for which they draw their money. The matter calls for searching’ enquiry and drastic measures. The cable has lately announced a small improvement. But there is nothing’ to indicate that increasing gluts and low prices will not continue to be the leading bad

features of the trade. The trade is threatened with ruin for lack of energy and foresight and combination. A com- ! prehpnsive scheme is required on a great scale of reform. The Australians are keenly alive to the fact, and are moving. There is a move being energetically made in New Zealand also. Let the producers consider it well. The extraordinary thing is that while English prices show an increasing meat hunger, the colonial meats are not in demand. We know them to be good enough to satisfy any reasonable demand. We know enough, therefore, to insist upon energetic drastic reform of the whole business of sale and distribution.

THE AUCKLAND HALF-HOLIDAY,

We publish this morning the correspondence that has been wired between the Premier and Mr Crowther, one of the members for Auckland, about the halfholiday in that city. Mr Orowther appears to labour under the singular delusion that the government of the country can be carried on by resolutions of public meetings. According to his idea we need not trouble about the Referendum ; for we have one of a very efficient character. We may get the Legislature to pass laws. It will amuse them and do us no harm. After all members of Parliament must earn their salaries. But that need not worry the public, which need only obey those laws

which it finds to its taste. When a law is inconvenient to any section of the community, all that section has to do is to assemble in public meeting- and order the Government to suspend the law, until the members of Parliament have another opportunity of earning their salaries by altering the law to suit the wishes of the public meeting. It is the simple belief of a simple, downright old gentleman who likes to speak his mind no matter how crooked it may be. It is useless to remind him of the real position, he turns a deaf ' ear. If he is told that the Government must obey the law, as administrators, he calls that nonsense. Any kind of remonstrance which interferes with the sacred right of government by resolution of burgesses he denounces in his simple way as equivocation. If you argue with him by analogy he says in his solemn way that he wonders what on earth you are driving at. Fortunately there is only one Crowther m the Colony, and he has had his answer. He talks as if he had a mind to get up a mild sort of revolution, but he cannot get rid of the very awkward fact that the whole trouble of which he and his friends complain has been brought about by the Auckland City Council. That body deliberately neglected to do what the law called upon it to do. It was over smart. But because it over-reached itself in allowing the other public bodies associated with it to fix a day it did not approve of, that is not a reason why the Government should act illegally and unconstitutionally, setting up a bad precedent. The burgesses of Auckland must realise that they have to complain of their City Fathers, who have in disloyalty to the law betrayed their interests. The City Fathers cannot blame the Government for the inconvenience resulting from their own act. If their i prayer were to be granted, the Colony would be plunged into chaos. The plain moral for them is that they must always and in all things obey the laws of the country. We cannot set up a partial Referendum to please anybody. Everybody must obey the law. As administrators, the Government keep to that view, and are doing the right thing.