WOOL AND MEAT

Dominion, Volume 10, Issue 3145, 25 July 1917, Page 8

WOOL AND MEAT

SERIOUS OUTLOOK

STORES FILLED AND SHIPS SCARCE

SIR JAMES WILSON'S VIEWS

I Several aspects of Now Zealand's pro- . ducc-exporting industry wore referred : to at the: Jb'aruiers' Union Conference ; yestorday by Sir .lames Wilson in his address to the delegates. , Touching on the frozen meat business he said: "The stores for freight earcusses aro more, congested than they evor have been. The Prime Minister said there would shortly bo four million carcasses unshipped,, and we have only , four months to dear-them in. It is L certain we' cannot do this before the , new season begins. It would take forty . vessels at least to do this, and that ' would mean ten a month, so that wo may find ourselves with, a .couple of millions ill store in November. The worst of this is that it is the cream o£ our trade which is likely to suffer. Lamb is not wanted i'or our troops, and other classes of meat have lo be shipped first in the refrigerated holds. At the end of Iho season, then, there must be a larger proportion of lambs left, in store than abno'st any other' class of meat. Lamb will begin to. come in in December to still further increase this quantity. Prices must fail in. consequence, for if the buyers cannot ship their stuff they cannot buy, or if they buy it must bo at a large discount. 'This has seriously alarmed those, whose principal business it is to fatten lambs. Thero has been a suggestion made that the slaughter of ewe lambs should be prohibited, but if this stoppage of sale ocelli's there will be ! a prohibition of another kind. Blackfaced lambs will have to be frozen, but at present it looks as if very few longwoolled lambs will be killed. I& most districts the ewe flocks have been increased to tak'e a lamb for fattening off them. The l.ist returns show that moro than half out flocks consist of breeding ewes; this should give us something between nine twd ten million lambs. If wo deduct the number slaughtered for food purposes, four, millions of these would bo o.ccountcd for, leaving about five million five hundred thousand to keep up otii- flocks. I do not suppose that ill afiy country in the world are there as many breeding ewes in proportion to tVae number of sheep that we ;an show. Analysing the Position. "The total number of sheep taken at April 30.' do not oi' course include, tho lambs slaughtered and frozen, and as by that, time most of the lamb for export hns found its way into tho freezing chambers, this would materially increase tho showing of our numbers in tho as;gi'egate. The total cold storage is put down as equal to t, 100,000 freight carcasses. If, then, wo find the stores with, two million in llicin, there is a margin of space for "J,400,000. Tho output of the year normally is 0,000,000, leaving 'tf,GOO,OOO carcasses to be provided for by space in oversea'steamers. Tho question then resolves itself into how many of these can be exported during the season, or how much additional storage can bo provided, it-,is possible, of uourse, that sufficient spaco may bo provided on ocean-going steamers, but it does not seem likely. Wc arc, however, promised seventeen steamers before I,hi) end of September, and Sir. Jlasscy is sangnino. that wo shall seo the season through; but it devolves upon fanners ■lo provido winter feed for moro lambs •jtian are usually carried through tho iv'inter. If this is tho case with shortened hands, it is almost certain that it vrill again affect tho area in wheat in the season of 3918-1910. The farmers will not be able to grow wheat and also 'provide additional food to carry the lambs through the winter. In connection with the export of ewe and lamb carcasses, it has been stated that some exporters have been unduly • favoured, and as these classes aro released at Home, by nomination, they had been a.b)e to make large profits. Of this 1 know nothing. I should think, howover, that it cannot bo laid at tho door of the comniittco which controls space, for all they have to do is to allocato the number' for. each port, and I should think havo_,no control over what is being shipped. The Congested Stores. "The congested condition of the storage brought about a. financial question. The Imperial Government had bought f.0.b., a.nd none, or only small quantities, were being shipped. The banks were providing the wherewithal to pay for the stock, and there was sonio nileasiness, created by the position. This was got. over by . the Minister of Agriculturo arranging that (he Home Government would take over the whole of the meat, andbe responsible for the storage, though only paying for it when placed on board. It lias not yet been, stated whelher this is the case of all further meat going into store or not, but when Kyool is paid for in store and 90 per cont. of cheese is paid for on delivery at store, there certainly should be a similar arrangement about the meat, and perhaps this may havo been the result of negotiations. In all fairness to the owners it should be so. If lanib is kept back for another year it might easily result in a very "heavy loss to tho holders." The Wool Position. A'a to wool, Sir .Tames Wilson said:— "Wool fortunately can be easily stored without cold storage space, but there is still a large'number of bales also awaiting shipment. In.all, tho value of the produco in store must amount to many millions, and we are now faced by the consequences of war ourselves, and it may require, great'mutual forbearance and perhaps considerable hardships before we are through the wood. Sir .Toseph Ward estimates that the additions:' in : returns .over pre-war rates ia <£.'?,750,000. Many biased writers havo rushed into print, and flung contumely oil tho farmers for being unpatriotic; for not. feeding tho people with bread at loss than cost price, and for asking a-reasonable price for their produce, it could easily bo shown to any fairminded person that so far is this from being t.ha'. truth that the prices accepted for their produce from the Imperial Government meant many millions less than the market.value, Tate wool; Tho valuo of the previous year's clip when sold on the open market would be at least a "million more than was accepted by the farmers when tho Minister ol Agriculture bought the clip. If the wool had not been, purchased, so great, was tho demand for it that our clip this last season (at least the, wool that readied Hume) would have fetched 25 per cent, more tha,u was paid lor it here. Our wool 4 has peculiar qualities which make .it specially sought after lor military purposes—an elasticity, not found in other wools —and we may lair]y• say that in wool alone, the farmers • of New Zealand have made a contribution to the clothing ol' tho anuie- of the Allies of at least a eounlo of million pounds. Our mout; Iws cfeurlv Iwn IJio chief purchase. Compare the price with what Hie. Argentine people arc getting, and it call casilv bo seen Ihat'lhc Imperial Government" got it at a. cheap rale, and wo arc oiilv sorry that- the people . iingland did not get the advantage ol the cheaper prices when tho meat that was not needed i'or the Army was disposed of to the retailer. Cheese, too, eanio in at a. much cheaper rale than that from Canada and I hat. grown at Home. So Hint instead of pointing the linger of scorn itl Ihe Xew Zealand fanner, he should receive the grateful thanks of tho Umpire, on doing his best to feed and clotho tho Army and tho armies of the Allies, at such reasonable prices." __