Australian Sheep in London.

Feilding Star, Volume XIX, Issue 136, 8 December 1897, Page 2

Australian Sh eep in London.

The following report on Australian mutton by a London correspondent deals with the meat qustion from an Australian point of view. The letter is dated Lou H on, October 2ud:

" The market lately has remained ia a very stagnant condition, the effort made to raise prices having met with only partial success owing chiefly to the number of more or less damaged parcels still coming on the market for sale. With New Zealand lambs selling at 2}d per lb freely for really excellent quality from Southland and secondary finality from Canterbury, it is hardly surprising to find that the pale of Australian sheep has been temporarily abandoned by some butchers in favour of New Zealand lamb. It is certainly an extraordinary position, bat we cannot shut omr eyes to the fact that, for the time be!n£, New Zealand lamb is the chief competitor which has to be considered by holders of Australian mutton. New Zealand sheep are dearer than New Zealand lambs, and as the average weight of the New Zealand mutton at present held in London is over 601 b per carcase these do not como into competition with goods so directly as lambs do.

" The poaiftion as regards N«ir Zealand lambs is so serious that for ancein a way the various Smithfield salesmen have agreed with the principal import* er* to link their little jealousies with a view to ascertaining the actual stock held, and at a meeting yesterday at the Frozen Meat Trade Association* rooms in London the stocks of New Zealand in London warehouses, as ascertained by ballot, are about 148,000 ccrcaseg. Besides these there were about 18,000 to 33,000 carcases not represented in the room. There are two or three steamers das to arrive within the next fortnight, having on board about 25,000 carcases, so that there are actnally 191 ,000 to 19(3,000 carcases of New Zealand lamb, besides 2000 to 8000 Australia as and 3000 Plates, or say 200,000 carckses in all, to be dealt with between new and the end of the year. At an outside estimate the present consumption is not more than 25,000 to 80,000 lan bs per week on an average all over tho conntry, and that consumption is uteadily falling week by week and the first touch of really cold weather will probs.bly see it drop more than half.

' The supplies of New Zealand sheep afloat just now are heavy for the time of year, and we estimate on the strength of the figures supplied to us by Christchurch Meat Company, that the arrivals for 1887 from New Zealand will ne fully 120,000 carcases over the arrivals foe 1896, while the arrivals of New Zealand lambs for 1897 will be 250,000 more than 1896.

" You can easily understand from tbe above figures, therefore, how much the Now Zealand trade has been overdone tbis year, and these figures make it all tbe more difficult to understand bow such sanguine views were expressed by some New Zealand shippers. Apparently in that colony freezing companies and others engaged in the trade make a point of shutting their eyes to tbe statistics of the trade when these statistics do not happen to suit their own particular purposes.

" As a set off to tbe heavy import! from New Zealand there must, of coarse be reckoned tbe falling off from Aastra* iia, which we estimate will te abont 250,000 sheep and 30,000 t030,0H) lambi, assuming that only 50,000 carcases of sheep and no lambs arrive hero in November and December, On the other band, however, tbe River Plate imports if maintained on the scale of the past nine months, will aggregate about 250,. 000 carcases of mntton in excess* of 1896 The shortage in Australians is, therefore, practically balanced by the increase in Plates and New Zealand if left as representing the net mc rease in the import of all descriptions of mutton and lamb.

'• We have gone into the statistics at the present stage thus fully to show why it is not at all likely there will be any material advance in prices of Australian mutton in the immediate future, nor until the market is cleared of damaged parcels and of low priced New Zealand lambs. There can be no doubt that supplies of English and Scotch muntoa and iamb this year have been folly ap to the standard of recent years, aiid Continental mutton is now cominp in freely. There can also be no doubt that ;he large imports of Australian and New Zealand rabbits is, at the present momnnt ma* terially affecting tbe demand fcr froien mutton.

"With regard to the question of de* mand, ever since tha Jubilee time busi. ness has been slack, and there cm be no doubt that the strike in the engineering trade has affected the consuming power of a large mass of tbe population, who are, as a rule, regular consumer of the frozen meat.

" Although prices may be maintained at the present level, through the firmnoss of holders, it is unreasonable to look for any material advance in prices when the stores are absolutely blocked with meat, with little or no likelihood of that pressure being relieved until after October, when the arrivals of New Zealand mutton and Australian Ijeef will be exceptionally heavy. In both cases tbe arrivals will probably be fresh records, as we expect 269,000 New Zealand sheep, and 79,000 quarters of Acstra'ian beef to arrive, quantities which, of course, are far in excess of tbe consumption in any one month of the year."— Post.