FROZEN PRODUCE LETTER

Otago Daily Times, Issue 16288, 22 January 1915, Page 3

FROZEN PRODUCE LETTER

ARMY SUPPLIES. SOUTH AFRICA A MKAT OI'OUTKH. (From Odr Own Couiir.aroNUKNT ) LONDON, November 27. To say that the frozen me.it situation at the present moment, the end ot November, is an interesting one, is certainly to understate (he case. Never within the memory of merchants here has there been a greater uncertainty at this time of the year a.-: to how the market may turn in the. near future. Generally, the dominant factor is the position which the arrival i.f Australian million and lamb creates in advance of the arrivals of new season's New Zealand meat, but this year there aie three or four other factors which overrule these considerations. In the first place, practically no forward business at all has been possible, and, secondly, the Government's huge purchases—at the rate of more than 600 tons a <lay—have overshadowed the market, arid have made it quite impossible to estimate what- proportion of arrivals in the near future may bo vailable for .ordinary consumption. Then again, frozen meat has been temporarily neglected during the rush of Home and European supplies, and the continuance of these is another rather unsettling factor. Had it not been for the dry summer, the huge supplies of Irish beef coming to market in double the quantities of chilled beef during the past month, would never have been in a finished condition and would have reached England merely as store cattle. Rates are very firm at the moment for mutton and beef. New Zealand Canterbury sheep making 6d and lambs rather weaker at 6Jd. Frozen beef makes 6|d for hinds and for fores. FREIGHTS AND RATES. The feeling of the frozen meat market here is that the big convoy of meat and troop vessels now approaching these shores will not have anything more than a temporary effect on market rates. It is felt that mutton may go down to 5d over the year end, but succeeding freight difficulties will evidently make later supplies intermittent and this will conduce to higher rates again. The shipping industry here is evidently looking to the New Zealand Government to meet it in some way as regards the cost of sending out vessels in ballast. Shipowning firms are taking the stand that general costs have risen all round, and that it is only just that the producer should share the burden with the transporter. FAULTY ARMY SUPPLIES. There is little doubt that wars, in themselves evils, have never been separated from malpractice among the armies of eontractors who live upon the needs of the combatants. The Boer war taught us this strikingly-enough, and doubtless ihepicsent greater conflict has comparatively far .less of this undesirable feature on the liritish side in comparison. However, it appears that some of those who are supplying frozen meat to the British Army are, to say the least, careless in the supplies they are sending forward, and it is well thai the Government is exercising that vigilan .e in rejecting faulty supplies. The Government has gone one step further. It has sent up from Liverpool, where all the South American moat arrives, specimens of the rejected meat for exhibition an ! sale on Smithfield, as an example and, possibly, as a proof of the misdemeanour if it should wish to go into the matter later on. I have heard the names of two contractors mentioned in this connection, and some of this meat which I have seen at the Central Markets beggars description. The evil does not rest with the mere iniquity of furnishing bad supplies; it is an act of treachery to the whole frozen meat trade, for it is at times like these that frozen meat stands to gain popularity among the public, and the offenders are selling the birthright of their fellowtraders for the mess of pottage of present gain. The Boer war frozen meat contractors were, more or less entitled to squeeze lid per lb for frozen meat out of the British Army customers if they could get it, but no one has a right to feed "Tommy Atkins" with unfit meat. SOME PARLIAMENTARY QUESTIONS.

Parliamentary questions have been asked regarding this matter and on one or two kindred subjects. For instance, the Jinan eial Secretary of the War Office was askea by one M.P. if he was aware that tin Swift Beef Company had sold what we; .) known as F. Hinds at 4?d on July 27 to ordinary customers, but at 8d on August 4 to the Government, and 6d for F. Fores, average 7d. No committal answer w-is given by the Government, but another question put to the Secretary of the Treasury was whether it was a fact that tiv.' companies comprising the Beef Trust of Chicago, operating in Smithfield and elsewhere in this country, had paid no income tax for a period of about 10 years, although their aggregate turnover in this country was something like 20 millions sterling pciannum. These apnosite questions never, of course, gain much in the way of reply, but they serve to ventilate topics which are the 'subject of constant comment here. SOUTH AFRICA AS A MEAT EXPORTER. Natal cattle breeders who have been determining this year to trv their hand again at frozen beef export have a good market afforded them by that created by the war, and although the three small shipments, pioneers in their way, have, as regards quality and dressing, figured rather poorly in comparison with other meat on the London market this month, they have made an average of per lb by the side, a rate profitable enough to stimulate a small export from Durban for a while. Many South African authorities, of course, are of opinion that the time has not yet come for that part of the world consistently to export considerable supplies, but the present small shipments of two or three hundred quarters a week, which have been coming to hand, will enable South Africans to correct their early faults quicker, indeed, than did the Argentinos, whose meat, of course, at first was not according to market ideals here. Some of the meat coming forward has been very large stuff and poorly dressed.

l>i:t. this will dcuhtloHK ho speedilv cor reeled by more careful Hclcction and «Im> iiy cducation. Messrs W. Weddel and Co. Mdd.J. tin; importers, will doubtless fully advise the South Africans on (hoe point-, li was thought recently iti South Africa that i iu_- of the brightest chances for ex port was in regard to lam I). There are to he seen on Johannesburg market six months old crossbred Xhropshiie merino lambs, weighing 451b, and al.so line I'er sian Suffolk crosses; at the present time a 4':lb land) I'et-ehes 16s or 17s <n the Johannesburg market.. War's needs, or course, have made beef a. more profitable coin m (id it v t ban lamb.