Frozen Meat.

Star (Christchurch), Issue 6704, 18 November 1889, Page 2

Frozen Meat.

His Excellency the Governor put the frozen meat question very neatly before the guests at the Show luncheon on Friday week. In the course of his speech proposing the toast, " Success to the Canterbury Agricultural and Pastoral Association," he took occasion to refer to the wonderful development of the frozen meat trade. His remarks ran thus : — " How great are the resources and the wealth of this country. When you reflect that you receive for wool three million sterling, and for frozen meat half a million annually and that while you are doing that you are placing cheap meat within the reach of all but the very poorest of Her Majesty's subjects in the Old Country, you will see how the Colony has developed * * * # The frozen meat trade has grown till you send Home a million carcases, but it takes fourteen millions to supply the present requirements of England, and by every penny by which you cheapen the price of meat at Home, you are helping to bring in to consume it a class that has hitherto been unable to afford the luxury of meat, and by a drop of a few pence you can being in another army of consumers." The exporters of frozen mutton to Great Britain do not view their industry with anything like philanthropic eyes ; but it is a fact all the same, as His Excellency gracefully put it, that "by every penny by which you cheapen the price of meat at Home you are helping to bring in to consume it, a class that has hitherto been unable to afford the luxury of meat." This is the situation, put in a nutshell. The prices now ruling for frozen meat at Home are quite remunerative enough to induce our exporters to continue exporting, and also they are such as to admit of thousands of the London poor having not only an occasional square meal oil good mutton, but a square meal very frequently. The frozen meat trade introduced these poor people to cheap meat, and every day brings fresh customers. And they are customers who, satisfied that the meat is sound and good, will entertain no prejudice against it because it has been grown in New Zealand and carried over sea for just about the time Noah's flood lasted. When poor people find out a cheap way of obtaining a more generous fare, they do not care to relinquish that fare after they have been accustomed to it for a time, and, as His Excellency said, a drop of a few pence brings in another army of consumers. We cannot afford to drop "a few pence" on a commodity that only Bella at 4|d in the wholesale market; but our commodity, by its increased export, may have the effect of compelling the sellers of other meat at Home to drop some of the fancy prices they charge for their goods. The demand for frozen meat is certainly increasing, and its price keeps fairly firm. We notice that in the North Island sheepgrowers are girding themselves together for a great effort in the export of both beef and mutton ; and in a very short time the " million carcases " quoted with so much satisfaction by His Excellenoy will give place to far larger figures. Far more attention is now given to the rearing of early-maturing, mutton-making breeds of sheep ; and it seems to us that this frozen meat trade, in conjunction with the , canning industry and that of scientific dairying, must sooner or later cause wheat j growing to be, to a great extent, displcced by sheep and cattle feeding.