The Bacon Industry.

Woodville Examiner, Volume XXII, Issue 3879, 28 May 1906, Page 2

The Bacon Industry.

AN INTERVIEW AND A REPLY.

A member of the Standard reporting staff had an interview with Mr J. D. Anderson, late manager of the North Island Mild-Cure Bacon Company, regarding the bacon industry. Mr Anderson informed the reporter that for some years past he had advocated that the Bacon Company sbonld remove their works to Palmerston. He held that that town was far more centrally situated in respect to supplies and also markets. He bad also urged that the works should be on more modern lines than those at Woodville. It was also mentioned that the tradespeople had taken considerable interest in the project and had purchased shares freely in order to get the works there. Unfortunately, however, vested interests in Woodville proved too strong to allow of the matter being pushed to completion, notwithstanding the fact that the shares were subscribed for and that financial arrangements had been made to carry out the work. Mr Anderson stated that the proposals had entirely fallen through and that there is not any probability of the works being removed. It would be no use erecting a factory in Palmerston as the district is not large enough to permit of profitable working This latter can only be accomplished when large quantities of pork are handled, and when the offal and by-products can be worked up into marketable commodities. Trouble now existed in this island through the number of factories already at work and it would have been useless to add another to the list. Forth' reasonsjust given Mr Anderson said that the Manawatu Meat and Cold Storage Company did not propose to [touch the bacon-curing trade at all. If the N.I. Bacon Company, he said, carries out its contract, it has an established business and a cure that must lead to success. In support of this opinion Mr Anderson said that the company during the last sir months—through operating in a wider field and establishing buying depots in Taranaki —had put through more pigs than for any previous twelye months. The result was that the cost of production had been reduced, as the fixed charges for rent and refrigerating remained about the same as before. The business had therefore shown a good profit. Though the company had not adopted a very progressive policy as to pushing trade, yet it had undoubtedly been of great benefit and assistance to farmers on this coast by reason of creating a demand for pigs and keeping up the standard of quality and price. At the present time the farmer had an assured market at rates far above those ruling before it commenced operations. Mr Anderson then quoted figures showing the great benefit that farmers had obtained through their dealings with the Company, which had taken the Addington rates as its basis. Previously rates here were Jd per pound below those ruling in Canterbury. The Company, it was found, had put into the farmer’s pockets the sum of £10,204 4s 2d on the pigs purchased. £82.530 3s 9d had been paid to them for pork, while the Company’s sales for the same period represented £118 ; 998 16s Gd Of this large sum it was said that £IOO would cover any bad or doubtful debts contracted by the Company. In all 44,203 pigs bad been purchased, so that, as Mr Anderson observed, “ when you consider that the bulk of the money has been paid to the farmer for converting into a marketable commodity what bad otherwise been a waste product (skim milk), the benefit to the community is at once apparent.” Mr T. R. Hodder replied to Mr Anderson’s remarks in the Standard in the following terms;—“Asa Director of the North Island Mild Care Bacon Company, I have read with interest in this evening’s paper 1 the report of an interview by your representative with Mr J. D. Aniderson, late managing director of the Company. While I concur with the greater part of what Mr Ander--1 son has said, still there are one or two statements which either your representative has misunderstood or Mr Anderson’s memory has played him false, and these statements if al- [ lowed to go unchallenged are likely

to create a wrocg impression among the shareholders and those who were willing to further assist the Company. In regard to erecting modern works in Palmerston North, Mr Anderson is reported to have said: ‘Unfortunately vested interests in Woodville proved too strong to allow of the matter being pushed to completion, notwithstanding that the shares were subscribed for and that financial arrangements bad been made to carry out the work.’ Now, Sir, this statement is very misleading. Vested interests in Woodville had nothing tpdo with it. All the directors were of opinion that if it were practicable up-to-date works should be erected on this side of the range, and a motion was recorded in the Company’s minute book, as nearly as I can recollect, to this effect: ‘ That if £6OOO worth of new shares are subscribed for, then the Company shall proceed to erect new works in or adjacent to Palmerston North.’ The directors, in order to show their bona tides in the matter, with one or two exceptions, all put their names down for fresh shares, in order to carry out the project, and also went so far as to pay a deposit on a piece of land, which they considered eminently suited for a site for a new factory: Unfortunately, only about half of the shares were subscribed for, and, as suitable financial arrangements could not be made, the Board o£ Directors felt they were not justified in going on, and werp_ -reluctantly compelled to give up the idea. ‘ It is quite trne that the business people of Palmerston North took up shares freely, and if the dairy farmers all round the district, who are chiefly interested, had supported the project half as loyally as the townspeople did, then a new modern factory would have been in onr midst at the present time.”