Manawatu Herald. TUESDAY, APRIL 14, 1896. Freezing Works.

Manawatu Herald, 14 April 1896, Page 2

Manawatu Herald. TUESDAY, APRIL 14, 1896. Freezing Works.

No one likes to see an industry that has been started and carried on for some years come to a disastrous end. It is therefore much to be regretted that the Freezing Works situated at Longburn have been closed and are now advertised to be sold by auction in Wellington. It may be, as very often declared by the opponents of j the company, that the company was one too many, and that it was started to compel the previous existing companies to pay higher rates lor their supplies. We have a shrewd idea such was the case and the promoters wanted the works built, no matter where, so that the sales of stock could be improved. Circumstances favoured the promoters in getting the company floated, but it's success was seriously handicapped by the j position the company had to take up >

at Longburn. The idea of buildiDg the Freezing Works at Longburn was to securo cheap baulago to Wellington, Experience has proved, to both the late company and the railway company, that sufficiently cheap freight on a railway oannot be given, and though the dead meat bad to be despatched by train for shipment, all the heavier class of exports such as tallow, hides, skins, &c, were always sent via Foxfcon and steamer to Wellington. The Longburn works have been closed whilst the Wanganui works have been opened and have paid well. This fact must lead those really interested in the meat trade, not those who only care for the annual expenditure of the company in their district, that the position of the Longburn Works must have been a great factor in their non-success. To loose freezing works in our midst will be a misfortune and seems unnecessary if those most concerned were to look into the continually leakage of profits in unnecessary expenses which appears to have been the rea3on for the collapse of the company under conconsideration. In Wanganui the works are situated at the mouth of the river to which the stock can easily carry themselves, and their carcases have only the one handling from the works to the ocean going Home steamer. In tallow, hides and skins the same saving is effected. When it was first proposed to erect the Castlecliff Works at Wanganui the majority of persons, including a number of seamen thought the scheme to load into the Home steamers an impossible one because the Home steamers could never safely lay in the bight* As showing the difference between theory and practice the actual fact is on record that only once has the big boat had to leave without a load. What has been done at Wanganui can much more easily be done at the mouth of the Manawafcu river, and if the works are to be sold cheap it would probably pay a new company to purchase them and re-erect the plant at the mou'h of the river, and sel the land at Longburn. To open the works once more where they are seems like courting loss. The profit on freezing is very Bmal), though probably stockowners could do without profits if they could be assured of no losses, but to suggest that a third time on the same spot may be lucky, is askjng them to trust to luck rather than to good judgment and good management. We trust this matter will be looked into and the difference in the expenses of working the Longburn and the Castlecliff Works examined, as excepting these all else in the two districts should havebeen equal.