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Evening Star, Issue 3013, 15 October 1872, Page 4

The Southland Railways.—The spectacle of a string of heavily-laden wool drays, toiling slowly along the road from Winton to Invercargill, while the locomotive is whirling jauntily along the railway, in front of a passenger carriage and two or three empty tracks, does not say much for the wisdom of those who settled the scale of charges for freight. Yet it was common enough last summer, and will no doubt be repeated this year, unless the tariff is reduced without delay. We are informed that several runholders are already in terms with carriers to take the coming season’s wool all the way to Invercargill, and that at the rate of freight now charged on the railway, viz , 2s per bale, the carriers can do so and make a profit. We would suggest an immediate reduction of the freight to Is per bale from Winton to Invercargill, and Is from Invercargill to the Bluff. As the trucks can take 30 bales at a time, this ought to gave a fair return, especially if labor in handling were economised by omitting the weighing process, and charging the same rate per bale all round, on greasy and washed wool. No time ought to be lost in making the necessary alteration in the rates, as the wool season is now fast approaching.— Southland Times. Good Advice. Seeing that the recent news of a meat famine in England is likely to lead to a great demand for Australian tinned meats, and as a necessary consequence that our meat preserving companies are likely to export the article in large quantitiet, we would point attention to an extract from the Newcastle Daily Journal, which contains a warning, and practical recommendations to the Colonial meat preservers and exporters, to which they will do well to take heed It is a fact, to which most people who have tried the experiment will testify, that the general taste for the Australian meat is much checked by the disappointment experienced by many who have given it what they consider a fair trial. The universal complaint is, that the quality of the meat varies almost infinitely, nor does the variation depend, as might be assumed, upon the different companies who manufacture and deal in it. One sample, we are told, will be splendid—sweet, firm, clean, and tender. Another bearing the same brand will be only indifferent in au these qualities, and another will be coarsegrained and streng-tasted, so as to inspire a wholesale dislike of the entire article. One thing is certain, that if ever this cooked meat is to make and maintain for itself an assured place in the English market, the makers will have to deal fairly by the public. We have ourselves comparod two tins taken from the same stock, and bearing the same brand, ono of which might have contained the flesh of a fine young sheep, as tastefully cooked as it could have been in an English kitchen, and another which was filled with a coarse animal substance, the identity of which we should defy the most skilful connoisseur to declare. That is not as it ought to be. The name of a company on the tin should be a guarantee of the quality of the meat to be found within. There is perhaps a temptation in the sudden demand upon a new trade to abate scrupulosity in regard to the animals slaughtered, or the care with which the flesh is cooked. But nothing could be more short sighted and fatal to the interests of those who are engagE.l in pushing the trade. We cannot help thinking that a more rigid determination to send nothing but good wholesome meat into the market would have conduced to the more rapid success of the experiment ; and that if it is to be finally successful, this honest care will have to be exercised more determinedly in future.” This is friendly counsel. This witness is too true.