The Evening Herald. TUESDAY, MARCH 26, 1872.

Wanganui Herald, Volume V, Issue 1429, 26 March 1872, Page 2

The Evening Herald. TUESDAY, MARCH 26, 1872.

Every English Mail now brings intelligence of an increased demand for preserved meats. Up to the present the. demand has not exceeded the supply 5 but it; has grown so iteadily aud surely, based upon the best grounds for continuance, viz., an experience of its quality and cheapness, that we see no reason to anticipate a falling off. Considerable prejudice existed, and does exist still, in the minds of the great mass of consumers in the United Kingdom against any preserved meats whatever. This prejudice was strengthened by the attempt made some few years back to introduce dried meats from South America. The preparation of these meats ■beingfaulty, and not suitable for the long sea voyage, the consequence was, that several cargoes from Brazil were placed in the London market utterly unfit for human consumption. The Australian and Jfew Zealand meats have consequently materially suffered from the bad reputation thus obtained, and it will only be by sending home nothing but a first class article that the trade will be firmly established. The success of the preserved- meat business almost solely depends upon the quality of the article, and the producers should, by availing themselves'of all the improvements suggested by, and based upon extended experience in the art of preserving, endeavour to attain such a standard of excellence as would leave little or nothing to be desired on that point. In an article on this subject the Cantarbury Times, quoting from a home paper points out that the Australasion meat-preservers have a practically unlimited market to act upon. The home supply of butcher meat is said to be. as strictly limited as that almost of •wheat itself, while the foreign supply is impeded by difficulties of transport in the case of live animals which do not apply to grain, and dead meat until very recently, could only be imported

from a distance in a salted or deterio-

rated condition. On undoubted authority we are told that after a quarter of a century of free trade, the whole weight of the British meat market falls upon the home stock. This stock does not exhibit any elastic power of increase lmc, on the contrary, has not unfrequently shown a considerable diminution. The continental imports, with all the development of steam navigation has not increased toihe extent that was anticipated by the opponents ot the free entry of foreign stock, and, as the price of fresh meat is steadily rising in nil rhe great centres of population in the United Kingdom, the Austaliau tinned meats, steps in to supply a want long felt by the poorer classes at home, and to confer equal benefits upon the producers of stock in the colonies. The total weight of stock imported from the Continent in. 1870 amounted to 45,127 tons of beef and veal, 3 4,953 tons of mutton and lamb, and 3852 tons of pork and bacon. The total meat product of the United Kingdom for the same year was estimated at. 659,646 tor.s of beef and veal, 409,834 tons of mutton and lamb, and 151,145 tons of pork and bacon ; in all, 1,220,C25 tons of meat. The dead, salted, and preserved meat received from abroad, including imports from Australia and New Zealand, amounted to 57,743 tons. It follows, therefore, that the total meat supply of United Kingdom for 1870 wa 1,342,290 tons; of which, the live animals imported did not supply more than four and three-quuarters per cent, and salted and preserved meat less than four and a-half per cent. The opening for praserved meats being thus apparent, it is a mere matter of time, for the trade to extend, so that it will eventually rank as one of the most important of the Colony.