FROZEN MEAT.

Ashburton Guardian, Volume V, Issue 1290, 16 July 1886, Page 2

FROZEN MEAT.

(The State.)

While the Bouse of Commons is engrossed in Home Rule, the House of Lords has leisure to debate domestic economy. Lord Lamiugton has proposed to call attention to the practice among butchers of selling * imported meat as home produce,’ and to ask Her Majesty’s Government whether they would take any nepa to put a stop to it, seeing that it caused injury and loss, not only to the consumer, but also to the home grower of oeef and mutton. This is a subiect which appeals to ‘ the business and besom' of all ; it is of almost as wide and serious import as the question of Home I Rule; It concerns not only Britain, I but the Greater Britain of the Southern I Seas and the United States of America, I The practice complained of obtains to an I enormous extent, and needs no dexterity I in the butcher ; it is as easy as lying. I Indeed, the butcher has usually only to I cold his tongue about his beef being from I America and his mutton from New ZeaI land to get the one accepted as ‘prime I dcotoh’ and the other as Southdown or I Welsh. This is not at all to be wondered I at. For years the stock-raisers of I America have been improving the breed lof their cattle with shorthorn Importa- | foils, and the farmers of New Zealand, I especially in the district of Canterbury, I have so assiduously ‘ crossed ’ their aheap I chat they can now produce better animals I for the batcher than most English I farmers. Indeed, what with this and the I perfection now of the refrigerating process I in board the great swift steamers which j ply between the Australian colonies and I Liigland, if a housiwife who understands I the marks of good meat ware shown by I her butcher two legs of ‘ Southdown ’ ] mutton, sue would in all probability I choose the one which had really been I brought from the Antipodes. In fact, ] We know of one shrewd tradesman who I does what is called a ‘ high-class ’ trade, land who ‘flours’ his New Zealand I mutton so as to bide from the practiced I eye certain signs of the freezing it has I undergone, and sells i f as ‘ Welsh.’ I Bur, it may be said, ‘if New Zealand { mutton, for instance, is as g >od as, if not I batter than English, what harm is done by the present practice except to the I batcher’s character for honesty V Firstly, { it is unjust to the colonies, since they do { not get the credit of producing first class I meat and sending it in perfect condition I to our doors, and since they do not reap 1 such benefit in increase of trade as they are entitled to. The beat consignments of New Zealand mutton are so greedily taken up by big batchers and great hotels and restaurants, to be sold as English that what remains to be humbly presented in market and shop is not fairly representative of New Zealand ine.it, or is not from New Zealand at al l , but from Victoria, or the River Plate, or the Falkland Islands ; for tens of thousands of frozen carcases of sheep and lambs are brought Into the Thames every week from these distant regions. River Plate mutton is small and tough. Falkland mutton is fairly good and is improving. Melbourne is good but lean ; all frozen muttons are flu for food, but that all should lake in the batcher’s shop the name and credit of the best is scarcely fair to the best, which is fit to be set before a king. Then the practice is unjust, and—what is almost worse—vexatious to those who buy beef and mutton. A householder, say, has regular dealings with a butcher and expects to be treat d with the honesty which, he thinks, his large weekly bill and his confidence in the man entitle him to. He pays from a shilling to sixpence a pound for his beef and mutton, and does not grudge it because the j iuts cut well aud eat well. Somehow he learns—either through dining with a careful friend who has studied the meat question, or by considering signs and lokens fur himself —that such joints as ha has been paying a shilling or more a pound for can be had for sixpence or utnoponco a pound of another butcher, who drives what is called a ‘ cash ’ trade, and who does not mind confessing that his beef is from America and his mutton from Now Zealand and Victoria. Surely the householder does well to be angry, and to apply to his own butcher strong epithets, when he considers how grossly he has been cheated.

The injustice perpetrated on either hand ia apparent, but what remedy for it can be found i Can either Houae of Parliament devise one ? Lord Lamington ou Tuesday failed to bring his notice forward, and we cannot guess what step ho would propose Government should take to put a stop to the butchers’ dishonest practice, except the appointment uf a staff of but chers’ inspectors.