N.Z. MEAT IN ENGLAND.

Patea Mail, 31 July 1882, Page 3

N.Z. MEAT IN ENGLAND.

After the arrival of the ship Dunedin in England from New Zealand, with a cargo of mutton, of excellent quality, in good condition, the London Times in a leading article commented most favorably on the achievement, and also spoke in high praise of New Zealand as a place for the investment of British capital and as a field for.emigration. The article concludes :—“ New Zealand, from all accounts, is a very healthy, very pleasant, and extremely beautiful country. Its only troubles are that it has too much of what we want, land and produce ; and not enough of the people we are ready to send them.” After reading the article the AgentGeneral for New Zealand (Sir Dillon Bell} wrote the following letter to the Times : -Sir,-— Every new Zealand colonist will thank you for your article. Let me ask , your permission to add a few words to say why the arrival of 'our 5000 sheep should. be welcome to you. In a striking letter on American meat supplies which appeared in the Times last December, your correspondent, in order to show how enormously the export of meat had increased from America to England, told you that the States had sent you in 1880 more than 715,000 cwt, of fresh meat, nearly the same amount of tinned and preserved meats, and still larger quantities of hams and bacon. Another letter said that these hams and bacon, alone, in fact, had amounted to 7,000,000cwt. In his BalanceSheet of the World, Mr Mulhald tells you how your annual deficit of meat is 600,000 tons ; how every year you ar& becoming more and dependent on other cuntries for the food supply of your people ; and how 33 per cent, of all the meat you consume and 40 per cent, of the grain (weighing together nearly 8,000,000 tons) came to you fronr foreign nations.

Is it not better, since you must needs have so huge a supply, that you should get as much of it as you can from your own colonies rather than from foreign countries ? We in New Zealand, at any rate, mean to send you plenty of it, and you must regard this first shipment as only the harbinger of a great trade. For our soil and climate are favourable to laying down land to permanent pastures and therefore, to the production of meat and dairy produce of high quality. Last year we had nearly nine times more land in English grasses than all Victoria, New South Wales, Queensland, and South Australia put together, and for six years past the sowing of these grasses has been extending at the rate of 300,000 acres a year. This means that New Zealand meat and daily stuff will be coming to you, in these new refrigerating chambers, not only in large quantities, but (what is more to the purpose) in exceptionally- good condition. If the landowners and farmers of England have to look to these • food supplies from the other side of the world as a 1 prodigious fact,’ they will remember how much better it is for England to receive the food from her own kith and kin than from those who may one day be her enemies.”

The following was issued as an “ extra ” on Saturday : RANGITIKEI BRIDGE WASHED AWAY. (per united press association.) Saturday Morning. ■A telegram received by Messrs Mace and Bassett this morning states that the railway bridge which had been temporarily erected across the Kangitikei river, and opened for traffic only yesterday, has been washed away by tire flood in the river during last night. The other bridge was washed away about two months ago, and a serious stoppage in railway traffic onsned. The timber trade along this, part of the coast has been seriously interrupted, and the bridge-work in the Whonnakura railway contract has been almost stopped. The first load of limber was got over the temporary bridge yesterday lor the Whenuakura bridge work ; and now the river has again swept the structure away.