COLONIAL PRODUCE AT HOME. INTERVIEW WITH MR JOHN HOLMES. (Christchurch Press.)

Otago Witness, Issue 2179, 28 November 1895, Page 7

COLONIAL PRODUCE AT HOME. INTERVIEW WITH MR JOHN HOLMES. (Christchurch Press.)

Mr John Holtnus returned by the lonic on Monday last from his tiip to England, and arrived in Chriatchurch on Wednesday. In the course of an interview Mr Holmes kindly furnished one of our representatives with an amount of information I concerning colonial produce at Home which is sure to he read with interest. FROZEN MEAT. In reply to various questions regarding the frozen meat trade Mr Holmes said : —"The frozen I meat trade is at present carried on very badly at Home, and if it were improved Canterbury I lauttoa would stand in the market iv as good a ! position as to quality and value, and would bring nearly as good prices, as second-class English mut'on — that is, from 6d to 7d per lb. The way in wbich the moat is disposed of is this: Butchers who do profess orjenly to sell New Zealand* mutton buy a few carcases of it, and many carcases of inferior mutton— Kiver Plate and Australian. The New Zealand mutton, Dewly thawed our, is sold as English mutton. All that is not sold frerhly, but becomes black thr> ugh the scrum of the blood running out and leaving the solid matter behind, is then told, together with the River Plate and Australian, as New Zealand mutton. Any unprejudiced neraou looking at the mutton in the shops after it has been hanging for 48 hours and practically deVoid of all the liquid portion of the blood would not buy it, much less eat it, unless very "hard pressed for animal food. Two questions connected with our frozen mutton must be solved before we can make a success of it. One is the def rosting or thawing of the carcases, and the other is its disposal by people who arc under some obligation to sell it as New .Zealand mutton. The litter only requires business arrangement, and the former requires the aid of an inventive genius who is able to develop or improve upon Nelson Brothers' system of thawing. Thi3 system is undoubtedly a great improvement upon the ordinary one, but can only Le carried out to a limited extent. I have s?en butchers going to Nelson Bi others' stall in Smith fit-Id Market and ordering up to 40 caivases of their thawed mutton, and the manager told me they are never asked by the butchers the price 4hey are to be charged. The" imprctsion given to' me, therefore, was that, all that mutton would be sold as English. The distribution of the meat is a question we must satisfactorily settle in order to make a success of the trade. I am satisfied that at the present time our meat is ouly used by people of the middle classes with limited incomes. It is not used by the wealthy or by the working classes. 'Ihere is an opening for the consumption of 20 times the amount we send if a little trouble were taken to recommend the meat to the working classes ; and that could only be done by the Government or people interested in the matter taking steps to lnve free dinners given to which leading men among the woiking classes would be invited, and whoe the meat at all events ■would be imported frozen meat. If tbat were rlone it could be done without very much cost. There is little doubt that the consumption of frozen meat could be increased in a very short time by three or four times the amount now sent to London. To secure that the New Zealand meat the people used should not be sold as English, it would be necessaiyto arrange that individual butchers should be bound to s>«ll it as New Zealand, and to sell no other as New Zealand. From the information I obtained, that also could be done by taking a little trouble about it. As soon as that is accomplished the New Zealand meat will command from 20 to 40 per cent, lrgher prices than any other frozen meat sent to the London market. There is another point I would like to mention. Butchers in London who sell frozen meat assure me that the meat we now send is not as marketable as that which we ueed to send a few years ago. I doubted his assertion, I and he then told me that the sheep we fattened now were a year or so younger than what we used j to send formerly, and that a prime foui'-tooth wether was much better suited for London requirements than a prime two-tooth. It was their opinion that the flesh of the two-tooth wether had not got the taste of the four-tooth. I heard that op'uion confirmed by oth^r people. Of couive we fatten our sheep as early as possible now." WOOL. ,i "Did you make any inquiries concerning the wool maiket?" " From information I acquired I am 6f opinion tbat wool will not be much lower in price for the next 12 months. At one sale it may be a little lower than at another, but taking the average it willtiot be much lower than it is at present." "Do you think that the price will improve?" "It may, but I doubt it. When I left England the mills were in mmy cases working day and night, aud I had reliable information that the mill owners were clearing as profit from jEiOOO to £2000 per week. The stocks of wool at H ome and aU over the Continent had run down to the very lowest, and the American manufacturers had just got their rJew mills into working order, and the demand from America had, therefore, been very great." GRAIN. " What are the prospects of the grain market?' 1 " I was in Mark Lane and had several interviews with the leading brokers, and I may say I would not attach the slightest weight to their opinions. So far a3 I could judge from what I saw on the Continent, especially in Prussia, I concluded that the price of wheat would not be very much greater in England thi, year thsn it waslabt. All through ' l'russia, Belgium, and Holland they bad solf-nclid crops, and in fact in one Belgian paper I saw a statement that they had the bc3t crop all through North Germany that they had had for many years. I don't think, however, that the price will be any lower. BUTTER. " Can you give any information concerning the butter market ? " " I met some butter men and discovered very peculiar features in the butter trade. The sort of butter that will suit one part of Kngtand will not suit another. In the north and in some parts of Yorkshire, they like butter very palc*and but si ghtly salted. In other parts they like it highly coloured," with a fair amount of salt, and in others again they like it of medium colour, with hardly any salt ; so that the butter for separate districts must be mad-i in accordance with the tastes of each locality or else it will not command as high a price as its merits deserve. To show how little the Knglish butter merchants know about the state of the butter market one of the bsst men in the trade in the north of England asserted in my presence that he did not see how the best Danish could touch 120s per cwt again, in view of all the butter coming into the market from Australia. But

since I came away I find that Danish butter has been up to 130.3 per cwt. As to New Zealand butter, there is nd such thing known in the market.- It is sold at a very low price, made up under -ucother name, and resold for a great deal more than it cost, as English or Banish, but not as Npw Zealand." "What cto you think can be done to improve the butter market ? " l "The factories should combine and appoint a reliable agent for the disposal of their butter ; a man who should be paid a decent salary and who would give his whole time to finding out the | proper markets and give information as to the kinds of butter required for eaih sepal ate district. The quality must, however, be uniform. The inequality iv the shipments of butter from New Zealand was the reason why it did not find favour with the butter merchants after they had bought oue or two lots of it. THE LIVE STOCK TR \DE. " Did you make any inquiiies regardingthe live stock trade from the colonies? " " I did not personally investigate this matter, but I saw a man who had been down to inject live stock on their an ival. He said that sheep arrived from New Zealand in the condition of poor stores, and some of these sheep, it was stated, had been purchased in Canterbuiy. He aKo stated tbat cattle from Australia had arrived in a similar condition, and that they only fetched low store prices. From inquiries I made lam satisfied tbat sbeep that are thoroughly fat, even if they reach 701b weight, are in more request in the English inatket than lighter sheep that are not iv prime condition. To ship sheep to England it is absolutely necessary to Bend only sheep that are in prime condition, which would stand the voyage twice as well'as those which are only half fat."