FROZEN PRODUCE LETTER.

Press, Volume LV, Issue 16412, 4 January 1919, Page 11

FROZEN PRODUCE LETTER.

HOME MEAT SUPPLIES THE PRESENT MAINSTAY. MEAT FREEZING IN GREAT BRITAIN. (FROM Ol"R SPECIAL tORRESrONDENT.) LONDON, October 29tli, 1918. has been a mucli-discusij-o:l word in meat circles of late. Throughout the length and breadtli of the country the meat trade has been baudying this word lor weeks past, and not only thiis, but farmers who havo in the past treated this as something altogether foreign, have been joining in the discussion of the question of home mciit freezing, which has been initiated bv those who are pulling the wires of Government arrangement of the meat industry. Not that thero is much ol' practical import to come out of all this, but the pother is indicative of the exigencies of the moment. AUTUMN GLUT OF HOME MEAT. There has been a great rush of fat live slock on most of the cattle rtiarkols of the country. Pastoralisls, teeing feed shortage ahead, and having tboir animals ready, havo marketed thein. in great numbers, as tliey aro often wont to do in autumn, and such has been the rush that in some quarter.; animals have bcon returned undisposed of. This excessive marketing is what the Government has sought to avoid, and failing avoiding it, it has conceived measures for utilising the supplies to hand. If, bv a magic wave of the wand, moat freezing Works could be established at proper centres in this country, as they are in New Zealand and Australia, it would bo all in order to kill tho beaststo save their lives, as the Irishman said. And so half a. dozen Government Departments have been tumbling over each other to find out all about the feasibility of the. cold stores in the various country districts tackling the duty of freezing down the rieady-at-hand fat beef now on hoof in tho market yards.

HOME FREEZING PROBLEMS. Ib is, however, by no means all plain sailing. The cold stores arc not handy to the places of marketing and slaughter, and if they were there are only a very few of them that have a sufficient margin of refrigerating power to enable theni to cop© villi the stiff ei* ta«k of freezing down. . Then there* is their laelc of equipment, a difficulty, hard to surmount at this .time: and. further,, there rs the great barrier of . the nttor impracticability. of utilising., in ;-.any. * thorough and organised way the by-pro-ducts resulting from such novel proreif? for this territory. Tho. foregoing fac- • iors will make it evident +o my readers that the likelihood of English" meat freezing is not very great, at any rate, in present cirenmstanccv;, and-now .as we are possibly on the threshold of . peace the pressing neod for such an operation as this may not recur.. But, as T have said, a number of Government Departments have been hot on the scent of th's inquiry: n special committee of the Ministry of Food has bepn entrusted with its investigation, and in London, Birmingham.- Glasgow, and, Cardiff, sonic parcels of meat from tho clausrhfor-house hare actually been frozen down. EATING ONE'S CAKE. Dealing with tho question in the Houso of Commons the other day, Major Astor, the Parliamentary Secretary of the Ministry of Food, said there were then being frozen about JCfHJ beasts per week, and lie hoped that this number would be increased to about -double. He added the interesting fait that by about this date the entire Forces in this country would "be on fresh meat' six clays a ,woek, while the Navy was also being given as much fresh killed meat as possible. Thus, it seems that with the imports of Dominions' and foreign meat at a. standstill;, the whole country, or as much of it as possible, is being switched on to home supplies. At this late our. j live stock census will perforce look rather different in a. few months, arid ! what would happen if there were not | to be fairly ready relief of the situation ! ahead, one trembles to think.'- The (Jo- I vernment evidently i s relying on that i relief being somewhere at hand round | the corner. Perhaps this, as well as | the terms of armistice, is in the hands of our good friend Foch. . AFTER THE WAR. The fact that that farmers' body entitled the Central and Associated Chambers of Agriculture affiliated itself Ja&t week to ttie Federation of British Tn- k dustrie3 reminds me that we'are on the threshold ol' that period of emerging from a state of war industry to one of peace reconstruction. For the Federation in question is chaugcd with-watch-ing the interests of industry• and commerce in the reconstructive period ahead, and that brings to one's mind the whole question of how the British' meat trade is going to come out of this war. And what about the imported meat trade, and its sadly distorted lines of communication:' So severely has" the business been torn about by the artificial Government methods "of distribution—l am by no means saying that this was not necessary in the time of wju's needs—that- wee- at any given moment the wliole trado to bo freed from its present restrictions, and unfettered leave be allowed to all and sundry parties to proceed with the trade as they found it there would be such utter confusion and such disastrous -surrender of the old forces to those jnterlopers who in the war regime had gained insight into, and a position in this trade, that the situation would be unbearable for *ho«ewho had previously constituted the back-bone of tho trade. As T have said. ; the force of -circumstances has allowed 1 the legions of the Americar meat trust I to get an .extra finger in the i>ie at a thousand points in the last three or four years. One need not now descend to details, although later T intend taking up this subject at full Inntrth, as it is of such importance to British commerce. For the present one neod only say that each of the steps back to normal cond'tionc must-be taken circumspectly. The.Government is fully alive to the dangers I have hinted at, and T have reason to know that the Question of clipping the claws of the beef trust—first cousin to Kalserism jind Hundom —is fully engaging the activities of many in official quarters.