STOCK AND GRAZING NOTES.

Otago Witness, Issue 2812, 5 February 1908, Page 8

STOCK AND GRAZING NOTES.

By Dbotzb. .feekly Stick Sale* : \ F°> tn!qhti>i : Burmsiie, "Wednesdays I veicargill, Tue*d .ys A*kturt«», Tuesdays j HcvtUly ■ Adiiaet.., Wednesdays Clirt p a i mer ctnr.. F*rt7iighthj : Winton, atn.l WaiBalclutba, Fridays kouaiti. Gore. Tuesdays Ptri*4icalh : Oaxaaru, Tuesdays Heriot, Kelsc and Kyeburn. The stock ma"kcts at Aldington ami Biu-nside are dull. Exporters are active in tat lambs, but fat sheep seora to have litti i meres' for them, and the fat stieep market nz present is practically a butcher's one. Owing- to the dry weather in Canterbury and consequent .'ack of feed, there is not by any means the- usual business in buying ss l orf> lambs for finishing in Canterbury- We sha 1 . 1 have to produce our "prime Oantertmiy" tbis year in Southland, and' shall Dot sea the "stock going through Dunedin railway yards as in the past- Even la*t year the quantity v?as much less than ever tefore. The Southland Frozen Meat Co. had p. nios!- prosperous season last year, and this year will surely have a better one. I beiieve that there will be quite a rush on ■the Ota(>o and Southland nr.eat works very foon. The- weather in most parts has been f u c and warm, and farmers should now he encouraged to do more in providing fecxl for fattening lambs, instead of reding, a* in the past, on Canterbury graziers buying thf>'r stoio lambs. This jcar they cannot, niid ant? year, I think, they sliou d not he **ivea ;be opportunity. It is gratifying ;o

see tha Southland Meat Co. declare a. good dividend, but the most satisfactory feature of all is that we seem now to be cultivating ou 1 ' own legitimate meat export trade, instead of being a mere subsidiary part of the Canterbury frozen meat export. Th«} frozen meat market in London is said to be weak, but this probably is only temporary, due to large shipments of Australian lamb blocking the market. Though inferior to New Zealand, these shipments of lamb fill up, and at a. time, too, when consumption, is not heavy. Argentine mutton also has been in heavy supply, and in both Australian and New Zealand meat there are far too many agents selling, or trying to sell, the same thing — often the very same lines. This helps to keep the market weak. The following, from the Pastorahsts' Review, deals with the position and prospects of the Australian frozen meat trade, and shows that the export trade from Australia is about finished for some time to come, also that genera'ly the prospects for the future are good and the drought over, as good rains have now fallen. Kam did not come in time to help them this season, but makes the future more hopeful. Says the Review writer: — The Australian lamb season is lapidly drawing to a close. Except in Victoria, where from 10,000 to 15,000 head are still being slaughtered each week, it is to all intents and purposes finished, ban ing dealing stores. As far as can be ascertained, the stocks in stores are light, and we see no reason for altering our previous estimate for the season's total shipments— viz , 1,250.000 carcases, of which nearly 1.100,000 have already been shipped. A little mutton is being treated in New South Wales, Queensland, and Victoria — mostly for Canadian, South African, and Eastern requirements. Beyond this the meat trade generally is quiet, and will probabiy remain so for the next few months. Some useful rains have recently fallen over I the greater -portion of the country which supplies stock Jor export purposes, and although i coming so late in the season they cannot be of much immediate benefit, but they may perhaps be taken as a promise of better things to come. From North and Central Queensland most satisfactory reports are leceived. TJp there they appear, after a lapse of ten years, to be once again having a proper wet season. Soaking rain at least once a week for two or three months constitutes a pioper North Queensland wet season, and if it conies again regularly as it used to before the drou°ht, the prosrects for the beef trade will be improved greatly. Of coime, as we have pointed out many times before there will not be many cattle available before 1910 at the earliest, but given pood seasons between now and then the condition will be all the better ancT travelling easier. Supplies of frozen meat on the London market should be moderate for some months now as the December shipments are considerably below last vear\ shipments, and the Totil Ja»u»>J shipments -»U1 be lee«, even though New Zealand show', a considerable increase on December. The following are the December shipments: — r Fiom" New Zealand: 65.000 carcases mutton, 52 003 lamb, 6600qrs beef. From Australia: 84,000 carcases rnuUon, "14 000 lamb. 14,000qrs beef. I " TTrota South America/ 200 000 cai cases thulton, 19,000 carcases lamb, 160,000.^3 chilled and frozen beef. There is stiil an uneasy feeling in London as to the effect of the actions of the American Meat Trust on the frozen meat trade from Australia and New Zealand, and the folio-wing, from the London correspondent of the PasroraUsts' Review, will bo read with interest. The Review correspondent does not, it will bo seen, take the same hopoful view a= our Agout-^cnoial And it seems very probable thai the present dulness of the meat trade i« tluo lu-ccly to a feeling of insecurirv create rl by tlie actions, past,, present, and future of this active and strong American combination. It remaiiii to be seen whether (he leaders of our meat trade in New Zealand can or will form am combination or organ w.uion. to cop- 1 with tho'-c enterprising Ameiic<in*, or wherhor they will take all they may get iv the futuro with resignation and meekness The writer heads the article, THE AMERICAN INVASION. Tl.iis topic month by month supplies me-t important uews for my letter Fust. I will give the-gist ot an interview I had last week with a big Snnthfield man. " Swifts are theie," he said. " and Armour? are Lound' to follow; where Swifts and Aimours aie. there will be the Nelson-Morris interest shortly. Swifts let the other members of the Trust in, Well and good ; if not they will force themselves into a share m the Argentine pie Therefore, we may take it foi granted that the Big Six, or a goodly number of the sextet. \v ill shortly be opeiatins; in South Ameiica They go there to get hold of the chilled beef trade, and, incidentally, mutton "When the Argentine meat companies started shipping chilled beef on a large scale the American's made the mistake of sending here a lot of inferior beef, hoping to swamp the Plate stuff But it didn't ; it firmed it up. aad simply established three giades The other Plate works, my friend suggests, will either be " roped in or squeezed out " " Signs are apparent already of two companies being tackled: the American notion is to woik things so that they may be able to get hold of tLe othor Argentine woiks on an 'old iron' basis: it is to the mtere=t of all of us that this pious effort may be frustrated Well, having established themselves m South America, what will happen 9 The Trust then having got possession of all the chilled boef. and enough iiozen mutton to control that part will proceed to work the wholesale and retail English meat busme=s, as they ha\e in North America They will force the buyers to take mutton from them, under penalty of refusing to sell them the absolutely necessary chilled beef. New Zealand mutton will be heavily depreciated, and Plate mutton brought up to a level with it. pcsibly over. r Llus of course, won't come about m a year, but that it will come unless something drastic is done is certain as the day. It is worth while for Australasian meat men to study the position, for their meat export is wiapped up in the matter. Tljere is one thing to do. The foimation of a Yankee trust (a development of the North American one, or a fiesh one on the same lines) in Argentina must be prevented at all hazards. There is no time to be mealynjouthed about the matter. Once let the=e companies get firmly placed in Buenos Aire= fiini enough to dominate the position— and it is all up with the frozen meat trade as at present existing." As regards the position here already tue Americans hive got into the provincial mutton trade. Probably, at some considerable loss, but that is a bagatelle to them when they want to squeeze out competitors I note that the New Zealand High Commissioner m an interview, points out that there need be no apprehension as legards Australasian supplies of mutton and lamb, because these are sn Wee But the danger

lies in the possibility that by underselling the Americans may be able to largely depreciate the New Zealand meat trade as to values. An instance of the enterprise of the Trust is the news that the Manchester Corporation is going to spend a large sum of money to put up buildings required to work a trade in live cattle, while the Trust have undertaken to send 25,000 a year direct to Manchester. Are not the signs everywhere apparent that English meat interests are being threatened? The scare as regards ' The Jungle" will be good for them in the end. for they took advantage of it to establish their own depots and become independent of grocers to some extent I hear that Messrs Armour are making inquiries all over the country as to cold storage rates. Verbum sap. The estate of the late I\lr Kelson-Morris has been sworn at £4,000,000. ' My Edinburgh friend tells me that Swifts have gone to that city, it is said, to sell frozen .beef. In talking all this over with a well-informed man, he tells me that I am " needlessly alarmist 1 " " Neither Aimours nor NelponMorris have inspected any works m South America, and the American Beef Trust people have quite enough to do at present in grappling with the financial position in their own country." But I view the grip which the Trust is getting as a band of steel slowly but surely tightening over the meat inteiests of the world.