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New Zealand Times, Volume XXXII, Issue 4954, 7 February 1877, Page 2

Austkalian preserved meats do not seem to secure a footing in the Home markets, in spite of all the efforts of Mr. Tallerman. Prejudice doubtless has had a good deal to do with it, and American productions" labelled as Australian have done much to damage the reputation of the preserved meats; but there is another consideration, which is scarcely taken into account in the colonies, that the difference in price between the preserved meat and the ordinary food of the poor in Great Britain is not much in favor of the preserved meat, a circumstance which accounts for Ihe fact that it is better appreciated by the middle than by the lower classes. It is well remarked by a Melbourne paper that working men do not buy chops and steaks at fifteenpence per pound, as the west-end square residents do, but pick up scraps at sevenpence, eightpence, or ninepence, or about the price of the tinned article, while those, who have to practise a more severe economy can buy inferior bacon, fish, and cheese at lower rates. These people err in judgment, but if tinned meat were cheaper than it is they would buy it more largely. The preserved meat is, strange to say, dearer in the shops which supply the poor than in the larger establishments which are patronised by the rich—a state of things traceable, no doubt, to the fact that a greater number of profits must be made by the middlemen before the smaller dealers are reached. The trade has fluctuated greatly during the last five years. For instance, in 1871 Victorian meats to the value of £273,465 were imported into England. In 1872 it was £324,207, but in 1875 it had decreased to £131,249. The same decrease is observable in respect of New Zealand, for while in 1872 imports from the colony were valued at £185,590 ; in 1875 the value of imports from New Zealand was but £19,801.