FUTURE MEAT VALUES.

Otago Witness, Issue 3415, 29 August 1919, Page 10

FUTURE MEAT VALUES.

The outlook in regard to the future of the meat trade and meat values and necessarily prices of stock v concerns us all. Graziers, perhaps, in the Dominion are fairly well fixed as far as prices of meat for next season's output, but afterwards no man can tell. To-day's scramble for easily-worked pastoral and —yes, arable lands, -would seem evidence by our leaders and financial magnates of confidence in the future prices. We may conclude that farm products will at last be on a higher level than before the war. Be that as it may, the future abounds with problems largely bulking round the price of food commodities, j Sir J. H. Carruthers, of New South Wales, in an article in the Sydney Daily Telegraph on the live stock position in Europe, Canada, the United States, and Australia, notes the marked decrease that has taken place"since the beginning of the war. He estimates the decrease in Europe alone as at least 50,000,000 sheep, 123,000,000 cattle, and 50,000,000 pigs, and considers that these decreases will in the future be increased. In his remarks dealing' with the outlook from the Commonwealth point- of view, we may take a special interest as not inapplicable to New Zealand. He says: "What place will Australia take? Our cattle are about 11,000,000; our sheep about 80,000,000, and our hogs under 1,000,000. These figures are not -what they ought to be, especially when one considers that the United Kingdom grazes 12,500,000 cattle and 28,000,000 sheep, and, if I remember aright, more pigs than sheep. There will be for years an ever-increasing demand for beef, mutton, and bacon from Aus tralia to meet European demand at high prices. Shipping space is not yet available to meet the full volume of export. Nothing is more certain than that there will be no fall in the value of stock until the long, lean years of famine pass away from Europe." He goes on to say: "We ought in Australia to be carrying double the number of stock that we are. No one realises what the rabbits have done. The bulk of our droughts to-day are 'rabbit-droughts,' because there can be no reserve of grasses or herbage where rabbits abound. Another cause of the shortage is closer settlement, which drives- the large flocks and herds to dispersal, and too often to the slaughter-house.—(This, of course, is not the case in New ZealandAc?. Ed.) There- can be no sound system of closer settlement without a pro-perlv-organised system of -rural finance, to enable the smaller men Ho have capital wherewith to stock and to improve their holdings. At present the bulk of the smaller men have to live from hand to mouth, and they sacrifice their breeding and their young stock in order to keep going. Anyhow, the prospects ahead for stock-breeders are good, but whether they can make use of their opportunity to increase their herds and flocks, and maintain them in security, depends on their financial position and the measure of encouragement they get from the men -higher up ' " The last paragraph is all too true. The prospects are good enough to bank upon, and, given an easy entry on to farming ot pastoral land and available reasonable labour., there should be satisfactory settlement, benefiting both settlers and the Dominion. One thing, however seems necessary. New.settlers will have to farm and improve their areas, growing on fattening lands foodstuffs .to turn off their •surpms sheep fat, and not depend on the other fellow. The man with simply pastoral land will perforce turn off stores. The position to-day might be better. Inis Dominion's immediate requirements would seem to be more ships in order'to clear out the 7,000,000 carcases now in store before next season, and there is not much hope of the works being clear of imperial meat before the "commandeer is terminated, and the chances some difficulty will be experienced in getting free meat away: The deputation from the Farmers' Union and A. and P. Associations which waited upon the. Ministers the other day stressed the foregoing point, lne Prime Minister was as optimistic as usual. "Bv December next, it was hoped that the "meat in store would be reduced to 4,000,000 carcases, and he anticipated no difficulty in arranging with, the Imperial authorities that when the commandeer was ended the new season's meat should be shipped at the same time as the meat remaining in the works owned by the Imperial Government. Sir Joseph Ward hardly thought that the British Govern-, ment would allow meat fresh into stores to take precedence in shipping of meat which had been in for a lengthy period. It is hardly likely, unless there happens to be a superabundance of ships with insulated space tied up at the wharves, bur Joseph intimated that in the likely conditions imminent he was of the opinion that no surprise need be evinced if the British Government made another and-higher offer for New Zealand meat in order to tide over the period before normal conditions were restored. It is a serious matter anyway, and it is evident that if storage space and shipping are not available when next season's "fats" are readv, there must be a fall in values of sheep throughout the Dominion, and if the prices of farm products come down, land values will suffer.