MEAT AND WOOL.

Wairarapa Age, Volume XXV, Issue 10713, 5 June 1913, Page 7

MEAT AND WOOL.

AUSTRALIAN EXPORTERS' VIEWS.

•On board the Niaagra last month en route to England, via Vancouver, was Mr John Cooke, one of the largest exporters of frozen meat frocn Australasia. Many years ago Mr Gooke was manager in Canterbury for the New Zealand Loan and Mercantile Company, and he started the first freezing works in the provtnoe. For 25 years he has been carrying on extensive operations in various States of Australia. Mr Cooke holds the opinion that New Zealana cannot hope to keep pace with Australia's progress, either in regard to wool or meat production, believing that the Commonwealth has much more opportunity for increasing her exports. Speaking to a "Farmer" reporter ,;t Auckland, Mr Cooke pointed out that last year Australia exported about carcases out .of 95,000,000 sheep, whereas New Zeahnd exported 5,500,000 out of 24,<000,000 sheep. He thought that within a few years Australia would be able to quadruple the present export figures, and .ship, say, one fat carcase out of every six or seven of the sheep stock in the Commonwealth. England, lie said, now slaughtered about 25 per, cent, of her sheep stock for food. M?,Oooke considered it is a pity that a foreign country like Smith America at present hold the key to the situation ag regarded Great Britain's supplies of imported meats. Tint country had last year supplied 64 per cent, of the meat imported into the United Kingdom-, against 14 per cent, from Australia and 18 per cent, from New Zealand.

In giving evidence before the Dominions' Trade Commission in Melbourne recently, Mi- Cooke said, he stated that it would be » bad day for the Empire when its meat supply came under the control of dangerous combinations, whose interests in times of distress might leave the masses of the Home country in a state not far removed from starvation. Great foreign operators (principally North Americans) had already obtained a large pliee of the Argentine meat trade with England, and agents were similarly engaged in Australia, their object ..being .to obtain complete control of .the-Britis'h market. He urged, close attention to breeding in order to improve the quality of colonial meat, and expressed the opinion that the Argentine produced better beef than Australia, because or that country's greater attention ,to breeding.