THE BELL-COLEMAN EXPERIMENT.

Ashburton Guardian, Volume 1, Issue 61, 14 February 1880, Page 3

THE BELL-COLEMAN EXPERIMENT.

Recent cablegrams gave us the news that many have been anxiously waiting for. Newspaper readers not specially interested in stock rearing have observed at intervals telegrams regarding the Strathleven and her voyage, but perhaps took no particular notice of her beyond what they would have taken of any other vessel. To the stock rearer in these colonies the voyage of the Strathleven was one of much importance, and many owners of extensive facilities for rearing have watched her progress from point to point of the passage with much anxiety. To them especially will the news of her safe arrival, with her cargo of meat in excellent condition, come as an evangel their ears have long itched to hear, and we may safely date from this week the commencement of a new era in the history of the pastoral and crazing interests in all the Australasian colonies. Already a fresh impetus has been given to stock rearing, and the increased attention the subject demands is now being given. From these colonies we have no doubt that millions of carcases could annually be exported; and now that the Bcll-Coleman system of freezing meat has been found to be successful, and Australian meat can be landed amongst the millions of London months requiring to be fed, and landed as fresh as when the meat came smoking from the antipodean slaughterhouses, a new market has been opened up to us. The great metropolis of England and the other Home cities are great consumers of meat—as great consumers as wc on this side are producers ; but the barrier of the sea seamed an insuperable obstacle to the Southern stock-raiser. Now, however, the Bell-Coleman system of preserving meat by refrigeration has virtually brought London as near to us as it is to York, and Cockneys will be able to eat steaks cut from Australian fed “rumps. To a certain extent this trade will affect the trade in tinned preserved meat, but the army and navy, and the mercantile marine, will still demand a supply of the latter, and the trade will go on as usual We are almost afraid, however, to study the effect of the Bell-Coleman meat process upon the prosecution of war, for mow that its success has been proved there is no saying where the frozen meat may not penetrate, and it is quite possible that these carcases may yet find a place on the commissariat list of a campaign and form part of the daily rations of the camp. In any however, England may now certainty to her Australian her daily food, and be almost independent of the aid of an ally or neighbor.