WAIKATO FREEZING WORKS.

Waikato Argus, Volume XXXVI, Issue 5668, 23 July 1914, Page 2

WAIKATO FREEZING WORKS.

To the Editor. Sir,—Since my letter in your columns two weeks ago has had the effect intended of throwing the searchlight on matters, 1 need add but little thereto. It is now clear that, so far as the Auckland meat trade is concerned, nothing can be done through the freezing company to develop the wholesale dead meat trade until Messrs Hellaby's agreement expires some seven years hence. It is also plain that if we want canning works in Waikato it must be a separate concern. An attempt has been made to belittle the canning business, but in America and Australia the meat canning trade is so profitable that it can compete for the highest quality live stock, and it does so today. In spite of anything that has been said, I am quite of opinion that the principle is utterly wrong in (laying the £BOOO or £9OOO reserve fund as a bonus to old shareh ilders in the way it is being done. If it had been in the form of a cumulative dividend, not to exceed, say, 8 per cent., little exception could have been taken; but here we have a so-called farmers' company laying down a precedent that it may over-charge its clients and then issue bonus stock to shareholders in audition to ordinary dividends.

In a few years' time a further extension of the freezing combine may be-desirable; but a 20 per cent, bonus to shareholders is not quite pleasant for stock freezers and dairy companies to look forward to. — I am, etc.,

J. D. P. MORGAN l'ukeroro, July 22nd, 1914.