Colonial Produce at Home.

Feilding Star, Volume XVI, Issue 122, 19 November 1894, Page 2

Colonial Produce at Home.

Mr Wollerman, who has just returned from a trip to Europe, in an interview with a Standard reporter, says :— lt was his intention to have given a repast to leading commercial men in Dortmund, composed entirely of New Zealand products, but he was unable to carry out his idea, owing to the sheep and lamb ordered at the Longburn freezing works, not having arrived in tiina. The frozen meat was expected a fortnight after his arrival in Germany, but for some unexplained reason, it did not arrive till six weeks afterwards, when Mr Wollerman had left for the North. It was therefore, disposed of in London by his instructions. While on the subject of frozen meat, Mr Wollerman remarked that he had visited Smithfield on several occasions and inspected many butchery establishments in the various centres in England, and he was fully convinced of the truthfulness of the assertion that New Zealand mutton was being palmed off on the unsuspecting British public as prime English, while miserable-looking carcases, from 35lbs to 401bs, were marked as New Zealand mutton. Great prejudice still exists against our mutton in England, whioh it will take years of perseverance aud hard work yet to remove. In view of the length of time which has elapsed since the trade was established, this is a surprising but nevertheless undoubted faot. The condition of the British and Continental farmer, Mr Wollerman describes as by no means prosperous and encouraging. While the farm labourer's wages, the rent, and generally the cost of production, have increased, the prices of produce have materially decreased, and the lot of the farmer at Home is not at all a happy one. In proof of this assertion, Mr Wollerman stated that whereas when he left Home for this colony farmers got as much as 2s 3d for their wool, they could now placp it with cliffipalty at 9d to lOd < per lb.