CHANCES FOR INDUSTRY

Taranaki Daily News, 3 June 1933, Page 6

CHANCES FOR INDUSTRY

PIG MEAT AND BEEF MARKET ADVICE FROM LORD BLEDISLOE. RIGHT CLASS OF STOCK NEEDED. EMBARGO AGAINST LIVESTOCK. By Telegraph—Press Association. Auckland, Last Night. “The Empire Marketing Board, by its research grants and publicity work, provided at the cost of the British taxpayer, has meant millions of pounds to the New Zealand primary producer,” said Lord Bledisloe, at the Hamilton Winter Show to-day. “The butter publicity campaign of 1931 in the Midlands and North of England more than made good to New Zealand the loss in butter export to Canada which resulted from that Dominion’s increased export duties. “New international agreements are every month now being made between Britain and competing foreign countries such as Denmark, Sweden and Germany. In every one of them a limit is being fixed to the supply of foodstuffs and raw materials which the Dominions are equally capable of supplying, with the promise that this limit shall be reduced gradually as products of equal quality and description become available in sufficient quantities from different parts of the Empire. “This is the case in the matter of pig meat as hitherto imported into Britain from Denmark. This pig meat must come preponderatingly from those Empire countries which are supplying Britain with her dairy produce, of which New Zealand is the chief. It lies open to this Dominion to build up a great swine industry with a market for its output if the dairy farmers ■will without delay bend themselves to the task of producing the sort of pig which the British bacon factories and consumers want.

“The same considerations apply to the chilled beef trade, which is confined almost exclusively to Argentina. Experiments are being made under the supervision of the ' low-temperature research station at Cambridge University, which give good promise of the future successful transport of chilled beef from New Zealand to Britain, with the help of carbon dioxide as a preservative in the ship’s hold to avoid deterioration from black mould, which, unfortunately, spoilt the experimental shipment made from Wellington last February. “This opens up the prospect of a new arid profitable industry for New Zealand, but, as in the case of pigs, the right type of beef cattle has to be obtained from abroad in much larger quantities if the Dominion is going to be able without undue delay to secure her share of it. Such cattle must be fine in bone and skin, free from excessive offal, and, above alf, fast-maturing. “I have', for the past two years been watting patiently for a change in the attitude of many New Zealand stock owners on the question of the embargo on- pedigree stock,” said Lord Bledisloe. “Pedigree animals cannot be secured unless farmers see their way to change their views as regards the embargo now imposed upon the importation of livestock from Great Britain. There is no country which has a greater need for fresh blood, and there is none which imposes, as she does, a continuous embargo on its admission than New Zealand. There is none which, owing to its geographical position, is so secure against the admission of foot and mouth disease or other seriously contagious animal diseases, quite apart from the excellent protection afforded by the strict system of quarantine both in Britain and here. I earnestly appeal to New Zealand stock owners in their own interests to explore this problem thoroughly before coming to any hasty decision about it.”