LONDON PRODUCE NOTES.

New Zealand Mail, Issue 1247, 23 January 1896, Page 5

LONDON PRODUCE NOTES.

| BUTTER. (From Our Own Correspondent.) London, December 6. Trade in the butter market has been j fairly .steady during the past fortnight, but there has been an entire absence of briskness, and the supply has been fully equal to the demand in all grades. The Danes have novr lowered their price to a reasonable level, and as their butter is coming to hand very good buyers are not particularly anxious to go upon colonial except at a considerably lower figure. Holders of good Australian do not care to take less than 102 s to 104 s, and at these rates the bulk of the Arcadia finest has been quitted. Danish is being sold at lOCm to 110 s The weather continues variable and muggy, so “ hand to mouth ” buying is the order of the day. The Australian butter to hand recently has, with the exception of a few fishy parcels from South Australia, been of a very good quality all round, and the most of it has arrived in excellent condition. The Plate arrivals, though small, continue to show excellently, and on the whole that which has come under my notice has been of better qualify than average Australian finest. There can be no doubt now as to the serious ness of the Argentine competition with Australasia in this line in the very near future.

MEAT. There is good reason for supposing that the game of substituting Plate mutton for New Zealand is being carried on extensively in Lancashire. A circular, headed “ Sudden Death to Large Profits,” and issued by a firm bearing a highly respectable name, fell into my hands the other day, in which the inhabitants of a certain town were thanked for past favours and informed that the firm in question “are now selling, and will continue to sell, prime Canterbury mutton ” at the following very reasonable rates : Legs of mutton, 4d to 44d ; loins and shoulders, 3d to 4d; necks and breasts, Id to 2d : and “ top price for prime chops,” per lb. At such rates it seems to me that the sale of “ prime Canterbury ” would certainly involve sudden death to large profits and small profits also. At Southport the same game of “small profits” on “ Canterbury mutton” is being carried on by people hitherto entirely associated with the distribution of American beef and Plate mutton.

The Rakaia shipment of chilled beef from Queensland has proved a dead failure. The vessel made a very long passage from Brisbane owing to detentions, 70 days being required to complete the voyage. For the first 40 days the meat, kept at a temperature of 29 to 31 degrees, preserved its sweetness, but shortly afterwards the engineer discovered indubitable signs of decay.

and for the remainder of the voyage the temperature of the meat hold was reduced to a point at which the beef was kept hard frozen. On arrival a quantity of the beef was condemned, and the shipment as a whole lias been sold at below the normal price of frozen beef. No thermostat was used in this experiment, thorough and uniform circulation of the chilling air being maintained by an extra number of trunks. The inference drawn from this failure by some people is that there is a limit to the period during which beef can be kept in a chilled condition. The Gothic’s passage, as vou will remember, was forty days only, and wiseacres are now declaring that 40 to 45 days is the maximum period over which chilling will prevent decay. This may be so, but I sin inclined to think that the rising of the temperature above 30 degrees had more to do with the Rakaia’s failure than anything else. The safe limit lies between 27 and 30 degrees, and with the thermostat it has been proved that the variation need never be more than 1 degrees VV ithout such a mechanical contrivance of course the engineer must always be on the watch, and though I do not wish to suggest that there was any laxity on the pait of the Rakaia’s refrigerating engineer, it is quite possible that the temperature of the beef hold sometimes rose above even 31 degrees during the first part of the voyage

The fact that the Shiels Thermostat and its necessary fixings have been rex moved from the Gothic has been ac- } oepted by some people as an indication . of the failure of chilled beef shipments from Australasia, and of the syndicate’s intention to abandon the idea of com- ' peting with the Yankee. As a matter . of fact Messrs Borthwick, Shiels and others interested are far from despairing of the trade and have arranged for the Langton Grange to be fitted up to carry 4000 chilled quarters from Queensland. The Gothic was simply denuded of her Shiels apparatus on account of the difficulty and expense of collecting suitable bullocks in New Zealand. Mr J. P. Dowling, who has been acting as Special Commissioner of the [ Syduey Morning Herald in London, ! and has been sending out reports upon the systems of handling and distributing colonial produce in Great Britain, returned whence he came by the Ormuz last week. I met Mr Dowling but once, and then only for a few minutes. He impressed me as a man likely to obtain genuine information of value to colonial exporters, and to put the same forward in an unprejudiced manner. Also, I should imagine, he would in- i dulge more in suggestive than destructive criticism. And the former style is the only one worth anything in connection with this immense produce question. AUSTRALIAN HORSES. The remainder of the horses ex Southern Cross were sold at Rymill’s Barbican Repository on Friday last, : and aveiaged the exceedingly disap- < pointing figure of LI9. The price was < doubtless the result of the doubt which '■ exists in the minds of buyers as to c how far the animals would stand an £ English winter and change of feed, t The auctioneer might with advantage 1 have pointed out that these Southern ' Cross animals had been tested consti- s tutionally up to a very high standard s on voyage. A horse which sur- g viran Aft strain.hf a as

that made by the vessel in question will hardly fail to stand the comparatively mild test of an Fnglish winter if it falls into moderately careful hands.

j The horses ex Gulf of Lyons were | sold on their merits, ami without any | warranties whatever, at Aldridge’s on i Wednesday. Ravers were few in number and indisposed for competition, and these facts, combined with the traces of travel still upon most of the animals, resulted in low prices. The well-known horse Goodyer fetched 50 guineas ; Wiseman, 45 guineas ; Barabala, 41 guineas; and Right Bovver, 31 guineas. The buyers got bargains Fifteen other hacks, many with good pedigrees, averaged but 20 guineas apiece, and twenty-three good stamp draughts made 27-a~ guineas on the average, the top prices being 45, 40, 38 guineas.