DISTRIBUTION OF PRODUCE.

New Zealand Times, Volume LXXIV, Issue 4978, 30 May 1903, Page 5

DISTRIBUTION OF PRODUCE.

CABLE NEWS. ONIXEX) PRESS ASSOCIATION. BY ELECT 810

TELEGRAPH.—COPYRIGHT.

NEW ZEALAND FROZEN MEAT. THE GOVERNMENT’S PROPOSALS. LONDON, May 28. The “Westminster Gazette” says that the scheme of Mr Seddon, Premier of New Zealand, for the establishment of shops in the United Kingdom where meat may bo sol'd retail at cost price, is a stirring advertisement for New Zealand mutton. Possibly, however, says the newspaper, Mr Seddon reckons without tho meat rings, and may find that two can play the same game—secure a vast business by sacrificing profit.

EXPLANATION BY MR BEEVES. ATTITUDE OF~M ANCHESTER BETA'LL EES. (Received May 29, 10.28 p.m.) LONDON, May 29. Mr W. P. Beeves, Agent-General for Now Zealand, in an interview regarding Mr Scddon’s scheme, said it would be a systematic advertisement carried out in a complete way, and ought to benefit honest private dealers. , It was intended, Mr Beeves added, to wage war bn tho selling of River Plato meat as New Zealand. The Manchester District Meat Retailers’ Association has resolved that if Mr Seddon persists in his scheme .the association, will discontinue :tho sale of New Zealand meat. Glasgow dealers deprecate the scheme. Tho Premier last evening, in conversation with a “Times” reporter, stated that tho fulfilment of the scheme referred to in the London “Daily Express” cable published yesterday is now only a matter awaiting Parliamentary sanction and the necessary appropriations to cover the oosti of tho buildings and stores that may bo required. Tho proposal was first made by Mr H. C. Cameron, Produce Commissioner in London, when the Premier was at Home, and the matter was broaiched in some of tho Premier’s earliest 'Speeches after arriving buck in the colony. The Prodiuce Commissioner is now on his way to the colony, and should arrive in the course of a fow days. When here he will make exhaustive inquiries into the matter, and it is probable that he will be called to give evidence before a Parliamentary committee on tho whole question of the distribution of meat ’in tho Mother Country. Tho Premier states, there is no intention on the part of the Government to cpt prices or to enter into competition with exporters now doing business. It is not intended to compete with those already soiling New Zealand meat or to injure or prejudice those supplying from the colony. The term “dost,” as telegraphed on Friday, is misleading. Tho market would vary and the prices would 'have to be charged so as' to cover expenses. Mr Oanneron considers that the distributing emporiums would bo self-supporting. At Cardiff, Glasgow, Manchester and Birmingham New Zealand meat is scarcely procurable, although there have been a number of prosecutions of persons for selling Argentine meat, as New Zealand. “Tho idea is,” said: the Premier, “that once wo have established emporiums and created a demand for New Zealand meat in the centres in which the emporiums were first established, the local tradesmen will take them over, and wo can siiift the emporiums to tfher .centres.”

In tho course of a speech at Levin on February 10th, tho Premier referred at some length to tho proposal. He said that tho colony last year lost over £IOO,OOO owing to the .intermittent nature of the shipments of meat sent to the London market. They must have cool stores in this colony for storing tho meat, add they would have to have cool stores in London, or in some other city in England, as well, so that they might ho able to feed the markets regularly ns tho Argentine did. There was a Distributing Committee from the Argentine and from 1 America, and the result was that it fixed tho price of every pound of meat that went on the London market. New Zealand would have to have something of the same kind, and if that was done they would not be in the hands of any companies, and they would get full value fOi- their produce. It might cost some money to erect cool stores in. England, in Wellington add Auckland, and tho Sojlth Island, but it would be as good a national asset as they could possibly have.