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Gisborne Times, Volume X, Issue 1026, 20 October 1903, Page 1

The bacon producing industry in Denmark is increasing by leaps and bounds, and it is stated that the most successful of the firms ongaged in it are co-operative. The number of factories of this kind, according to a recent visitor to the country named, is 27, and the pigs annually killed in these factories have increased during the past five years from 525,000 to 777,000, and the annual value of the output from £1,250,000 to £2,500,000. At 11 factories out of the 27 there are supplementary slaughter-houses, where for the year 1902 an aggregate of 12,000 cattle and sheep are slaughtered in addition to the pigs. Each co-operative shareholder guarantees to supply a certain number of pigs to the factory, and each factory on the average covers a radius from which the pigs are drawn of about 16 miles. The pigs are paid for by five weight on the factory weighbridge. The average loss in killing is about 25 per cent. The difference between dead and cured weight is about 20 per cent. In the starting of a factory no capital is called up from the farmers, a local bank, upon the joint guarantee of the farmers, advancing a loan sufficient not only for the erection of the building and plant, but also for working capital.

Mr Seddon has been strongly urged to insert a clause in his amending licensing Bill providing that the poll should be taken every six years, instead of every three years as at present, but he hesitates. Indeed, it is more than likely that the Bill will come down without this saving clause, though its justness is recognised throughout the country, and though a distinct majority of the House is in favor of it. Usually, Mr Seddon does not lack strength, but in this particular matter his weakness threatens to become pitiful. The lot of the trade at the present time is not a happy one. Scarcely is one poll over before preparations for another must be commenced. There is no rest, no security. The manufacturer and merchant complain that their business is kept in a continual state of unrest by the labor legislation, but have a right of appeal to the Arbitration Court, while the brewer or publican has practically none. Every wave of popular sentiment against liquor threatens him with ruin. If the class of hotels is to be improved, and if the accommodation for the travelling publio is to keep paco with the growth of our population, more secure tenure should certainly be conceded, and it can best be seoured by a system of sis years’ polls, Free Lance.