IMPERIAL MEAT SUPPLY

Dominion, Volume 9, Issue 2601, 25 October 1915, Page 3

IMPERIAL MEAT SUPPLY

WORKING OF THE SCHEME. Tho Government has paid on behalf of the Imperial Board of Trade upwards of £5,500,000, or at tho rate of £700,000 per month, for meat purchased under tho Imperial meat- supply scheme. During the first fortnight of the present month the amount paid out was £776,028. This means that shipment lias been especially rapid lately, and it is now assured t'hat tho new season will open with the cold stores empty. Tho good prices ruling and the almost insatiable demand for our meat has awakened financiers to the possibili-, ties of the trade, and eleven new freez- 1 ing works are either contemplated or in course of consfruction. These works will ; when completed, provide accommodation for 900,000 freight carcasses, and beyond this, additions to tho present freezing chambers will provido for 900,000 carcasses more. When all this space is available the stores in tho Dominion will have capacity for 4,000,000 carcasses. This means that the embarrassing congestion which occurred in last season is never likely to recur. When the scheme was first introduced there were in store 1,384,000 freight carcasses. Sheep and lambs poured into the works, and there was a shortage of shipping, circumstances which caused the total amount in stores to increase to 2,198,000 carcasses. Sirico that date stores have been gradually, and of late.very rapidly, cleared, and by the middle of next month there will not) be more than 205,000 carcasses in store.