AUSTRALIAN MEAT & LONDON BUTCHERS.

Poverty Bay Standard, Volume X, Issue 1033, 7 February 1882, Page 4

AUSTRALIAN MEAT & LONDON BUTCHERS.

With regard to the Australian frozen meat trade, a writer in Truth observes : —“ The 5000 carcases of sheep sent over the other day from Australia were sold at 3Jd. per lb. At this rate, allowing for profit of intermediaries, prime joints ought to be delivered to retail customers for a maximum of 7d. per lb. Australian mutton if not better. Why, then, are we still asked to pay Is. per lb. for prime joints ? It is a little too absurd that English farmers should suffer owing to Australian competition, and yet no one but Smithfield salesmen and retail butchers should reap the benefit. If a tax of Id. per lb. were imposed upon Australian mutton, there would be a universal howl of indignation. Why, then, do the public allow a tax of sd. per lb. to be levied on them for the benefit, not of the exchequer, but of private indivduals? Australia can produce, and sell in London with a good profit, any number of sheep that we may require at 3|d. per lb. To establish this trade is of vital consequence to her; but if she does not take active measures to prevent it, such a prejudice will be created against Australian mutton that it will take years to overcome it. No doubt the greater portion of the 5000 carcases found their way into the shops of butchers, and most of them were sold as English mutton. If a customer asked for Australian mutton, he was probably given inferior English mutton. What the Australians should do is this: They should establish 50 retail butchers’ shops in different parts of London and its suburbs, and they should sell their meats in them, charging sufficient, in addition to the 3|d., to pay for the business of retailing, sending for orders, &c. In this w-ay, and this way alone, the ‘ ring ’ is likely to be broken up. I will assume that this would cost £150,000. It would pay good interest, and it would, in its ultimate results, be the most remunerative investment to the Colonies which can well be imagined. We have in England many interested in the Australian Colonies; why, then, do they not form a company, and enable every one in London to buy Australian meat at a fair and legitimate trade profit ?” [The Europa’s shipment of frozen meat, sold subsequently to the above, realized in the London market wholesale an average of sfd per pound.