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Otago Daily Times, Issue 18511, 23 March 1922, Page 4

THE MEAT POOL AND THE HOME MARKET. The establishment of the Meat Pool in New Zealand is regarded in Manchester as affording a desirable opportunity for securing a wider recognition of the value of that city as a distributing centre for the products of'the dominion. Nor can it be doubted that the promotion in Manchester of a scheme for the extension of financial guarantees to exporters encouraged Mr Massey very considerably in the launching of the meat pool project. It is, certainly, a reasonable claim that is advanced on behalf of Manchester that the construction of the Ship Canal linking the port of Liverpool with the city enables it as a distributing centre to serve efficiently and economically one-fifth of the entire population of Great Britain, comprising the inhabitants of Lancashire, Yorkshire, and the industrial North-west of England. For a variety of reasons there has not been, in the past, the direct trading from the dominions to Manchester that would admit of merchants in that city handling shipments of dairy produce and meat from Australia and New Zealand so as to distribute it to the best advantage to the great markets of the North of England. Through the formationJ however, of an influential corporation known as the Manchester Consignments, Limited, it is proposed to alter all this and to make a determined effort to bring the New Zealand producer into closer touch with the North of England consumer, with results which, it is suggested, will be of considerable financial advantage to all parties concerned. Already communications have passed between the Manchester consignments, Limited, and Mr Massey in which the Government has been assured that banking arrangements are complete for advances against shipments of meat to Manchester. The two main features in the scheme are expressly devised to overcome certain outstanding difficulties which hitherto have militated against Manchester and have told in favour of shipments to London or Hull. The first difficulty has been the absence of a regular and direct steamer service between oversea ports and Manchester, and the second has been the lack of proper facilities for making the necessary financial arrangements, The policy henceforth to be pursued, as outlined in the Manchester Guardian, is “to support the movement for direct shipments to Manchester by providing facilities for taking up the documents of reliable consignors in New Zealand and Australia and making advances on the cargoes that are destined for the Ship Canal.” The scheme is one which, while it promises an interesting departure, offers also the possibility of developments that may be distinctly favourable to the operations of the Meat Producers’ Board in New Zealand.