WELLINGTON NEWS

Hokitika Guardian, 21 July 1926, Page 4

WELLINGTON NEWS

MEAT INDUSTRY BEVIVAL. (Special to “ Guardian.”) AVELLINCTON, July 19. The anxiety being felt as to the future of the meat freezing industry is certain to give rise to a variety of suggestions for the resuscitation of tlie industry. Already there is a suggestion that there should be an inquiry into the subject. The politician wants a Parliamentary inquiry, and others want experts to undertake the job. There does not appear to be any great need for an inquiry for all the facts are known, and in the course of a few weeks they will be emphasised .by the issue of balance sheets by various companies. In any case an inquiry whether held by experts or politicians will not solve the problem. The whole aspect of the frozen meat trade lias changed during the past ten or twelve years, and the change lias been forced upon i:be trade by the tactics of the American packers. Prior to the war the British held a sort of controlling interest in the Argentine beef trade. In the American companies whose interest in llie Argentine was comparatively small made strenuous efforts to acquire a larger share of British imports of Argentine beef and to secure their ends they started a price war. The British concerns could not .stand up to this attack because they were small and with limited resources. The British companies then set about building up their connections and Vestevs who control thousand of retail shops scattered throughout the United Kingdom. The British companies discovered that the meat business necessitated large scale production and control of large supplies if the large scale distribution was to be maintained and Vcsteys are now interested in meat freezing works in various parts of the world. The American meat packers are again attacking the interests of the British firm and a price war in respect to chilled beef is being waged now. The Now Zealand industry is feeling the effects of all this. Vcsteys, Borthv.icks and one or two American concerns are operating in the Dominion, and they are large scale buyers ami exporters. It is of llie utmost importance to them that they should ha •e adequate supplies of all classes of meat to supply the retail shops. At times the necessity of possession overrides the qcstion of price. They must have the meat whatever the cost and so in their operations in New Zealand they have crippled the freezing companies that freeze only for owners, and do not speculate in fat stock. This crippling process was not undertaken by design, it is rather an outcome of the new developments in the trade. Farmers who are willing to freeze on their own account are very few now, for they can make a hotter deal by selling to the large exporters, The latter have in some places their own freezing works, or they are regular customers of freezing works where they probably get preferential treatment. The exporter who holds a license can buy stock in any part of the country and so the large exporters have their agents scouring the country. Tlie industry has become more and more a big scale affair, and in this the farmers’ co-operative freezing works have no place, and the whole trend now is for the industry fo puss into the hands of companies with large resources and who can operate on a largo scale. Preventing these large exporting foreign concerns is no solution of the problem, for they will get for nothing what they should he made to pay for. It is mutton and lamb they want, and sufficient mechanical and freezing facilities for dealing with the fat stock. Amalgamation of cooperative freezing companies will not solve the problem either unless this new concern is very strong in capital resolves. Where and how the capital is to ho obtained is a problem. Tt is a stiff proposition hut it is economic : .'t ali its features, not political'.