MILLION LYING IDLE.

Thames Star, Volume LVII, Issue 14742, 23 August 1921, Page 6

MILLION LYING IDLE.

MEAT WORKS AT DARWIN. For over two years the most important industry in the Northern Territory, apart from cattle-raising, has been closed, says tho Melbourne correspondent of the Sydney Morning Herald. This is the meat freezing works of Vestey Bros., who invested £1,000,000 in the venture after an agreement had been made with tho Commonwealth Government in June, 1914. Whether operations will be recommenced in tun.for the season next year is still a matter of doubt. During the three seasons tho works were open over 70,000 head of cattle were killed and prepared for export, but opera tions were hampered owing to the high cost of material, shortage of shipping, and the difficulty in obtaining machinery. The greatest, difficulty was the dearth of shipping, culminating in the enforced shutting down of the works for The 1920 season.

The Shipping Controller was unable to spare ships to supply 7'-00 tons of coal, and to take away the meat lying in the freezers from the previous season. There was therefore, no option but to close. * Since then Darwin had been a hotbed of trouble to the Federal Government, and over £I6OO have oesn given to people who had not enough money to pay their fares away from the place. The agreement will end about the middle of the next killing season, and if the works are to be re-opened an early decision is necessary in order that the preliminary work may be undertaken at cnce. The opening of +be works would employ hundreds of men at good .wages, and m'ght otter one solution of the troubles of the Northern Territory.