The Branding of Frozen Meat.

Opunake Times, Volume III, Issue 126, 17 September 1895, Page 3

The Branding of Frozen Meat.

[N.Z. Times.] Lord Onslow has, it is hardly necessary t > remark, earned the gratitude of cveiy colonial producer by the services he has rendered to the cause of frozen meat. He began by bringing the ariicle to the notice of authorities of established reputation in the world of taste, and he has started a crusade for the distinctive marking of our colonial meat. Ho has not succeeded yet, but he has succeeded in getting a Parliamentary investigation which has thrown a strong light upon the practices of the distributing trade. The evidence taken by the Parliamentary Committee certainly pointed to the conclusion that our meat is bought cheap in the wholesale market and sold dear in ihe retail, the large difference representing the fraud upon tne grower. Since then it has been pointed out hy Mr Duthie aud others that the collapse of our frozen meat is a real, not an artificial, collapse, due not to the machinations of middlemen, but to the inferior quality of oi r meat or to the imperfection of its preparation for the market. It has been concluded, in consequence, that the old grievance against the middlemen has no foundation at all. There is no doubt that the revelations of Messrs Duthie, C. Pharazyn and others exposed serious flaws in the working up of the article for export. As we pointed out at the time, these exposures required the serious attention of all concerned. But that they proved the case against the suspicion of malpractice on a gigautic scale was doubted, and very properly so. Immediately after these exposures there came another exposure which threw them into the shade entirely. The Mark Lane Express of May 27th last referred to a case of a most startling character. A New Zealand consignor of mutton, who was very dissatisfied with the prices obtained for his meat —twopence farthing aud upwards—demanded to see the books of the firm of the middlemen who had furnished his account sales. They refused ; he invoked the law; the Judge decided that he had a right to see the books, and the firm in question thereupon paid the costs of the application and £7OOO in hard cash besides. The Express, in its comments on the case, took off its gloves. It described this £7OOO as " hush money," and bluntly declared that there was, in all probability, something very rotten in the state of the meat market. If a single firm could afford to pay so large a sum as £7OOO to save the production of its books, to keep daylight out of its transactions in fact, that firm must have been making enormous and most improper profits out of the low prices quoted in its accou.it sales. Did the "hush money" come out of the pockets of the firm, or was ifc contributed by all the ot';er firms, or some of the firms, constituting a ring of spoliators ? These questions were raised by the payment of that £7OOO ; and they are very important. They are of the very last aud most crucial importance. What the answer may be we need not stop here to enquire. For prudeut men of business there is only one course to take. It is to demand that every carcase that sails from these shores shall be branded with a distinctive mark. It is, in short, to follow the lead of Lord Onslow with determined energy and uncompromising insislance. Lord Onslow's proposal has boon opposed by many reasons. Against all reforms, reasons are as plentiful as blackberries on the hedges in early autumn. Reforms, nevertheless, have a knack of prevailing. It was declared impossible to devise a brand which would be effectual. Brand the wrapper and you let the carcase go free; brand the carcase and the joints escape through the hands of the retailer; get an effectual brand and you spoil the meat. These were the chief objections. They were formidable, not because they showed the vis inertia; of vested interests. But we have here in Wellington a system of branding which is a complete answer to the absurd argument of the impossible. It is the invention of Mr Potter, and the property of Mr Smythe, of the Islington Works, at Templeton, near Christchurch. We have seen a specimen of its handiwork in the Parliamentary lobby, where a branded cercase of mutton was on exhibition. It is a roller carrying a number of knife points arranged as a device. The operator simply rolls it along the carcase, and the brand—"N.Z." or "N.8.W.," or any other combination of letters —is punctured on the skin in indelible letters. It must be put on before riyor mortis has set it, and it can be applied to every part of the carcase without touching the fleshy parts. By this means " weeping " is avoided, and every joint is marked. The only way to defeat the object of the brand is to cut off the brand. But that can only be done in a way which must draw attention broadly and pointedly to the fraud. The advantages are that the meat is not in any way injured, and not made in the least unsightly, that the brand is safely distinctive, that its application adds nothing appreciable to the cost of freezing, as a boy can mark with this- roller 500 carcases per hour. Of the complete success of this system of branding no practical man can entertain a doubt for a single moment. If there is anything in the exposure in the Mark Lane Express, there is the strongest argument for the distinctive markiug of our meat by a process whose results are indelible without suspicion. The gravamen of the exposure in the Express is that the New Zealand producer loses several pence on every pound of his ine.it. That is to say there is a prima facie case for believing that the middlemen, under cover of those hitherto infallible documents kuown as account sales, rob him of several pence for every pound of the meat they seii for him. What other explanation can there be of the

fact that one firm p id £7OOO Inn!, mo:> y to avoid production of i!s b -o!;s ? The Mark Lane Express evidently thinks there can he no other ; and every sensible man must think with that most, independent and re mark ably well-in formed journal. An indelible brand wi 1 be a most effectual protection, and protection is what the producers require. To them the reports of well-meaning gentlemen like Mr Duthie on trade matters of which they can know absolutely nothing of their own knowledge are worthies?. It is all very well for Mr Duthie to tell them that nobody Iris robb; d them systematically. It is much better for them to stick a brand on their meat which will effectually prevent any attempts at robbery by unscrupulous middlemen at the other end. Let them remember that every penny in. the pound saved represents half a million of money. As at least twopence may be gained—provided the significance of the Mark Lane story is as black as it appears—the simple act of running a roller with a sharppointed device over each carcase of mutton before it leaves the colony means the addition of ten shillings per head of export, or at least a million a year to the wealth of the colony. Decidedly branding of frozen carcases is worth trying.