South Canterbury Times. MONDAY, SEPTEMBER 26, 1881.

South Canterbury Times, Issue 2657, 26 September 1881, Page 2

South Canterbury Times. MONDAY, SEPTEMBER 26, 1881.

A few days ago we published an article expressing satisfaction at the shelving of the question of subsidising a direct steam service to England, so far as the establishment of such a service was connected with the carrying on of a frozen meat trade. It was endeavored to be shown in that article that if the trade cannot be carried on without the subsidising of the vessels engaged in it, it had better be let alone for the presents It seems that it is not to be let alone, for we are informed that a company is already established in Dunedin to enter into the trade, and that they have secured a site of 20 acres on which to erect buildings and machinery for the preparation, by the refrigerating process, of meat and other produce for export. How is the produce to be exported, and to what place or places ? It is certain that a single company working at any one New Zealand port cannot prepare a full load for a steam vessel of any size, at least in any reasonably short time. A member of the Christchurch Chamber of Commerce estimated that Canterbury could supply about 5000 fat sheep, or IdO tons mutton, per month during the season. We have no estimate of quantities available from Dunedin, but should suppose that Otago could not supply much more than Canterbury. Adding as many tons for beef and other produce and then doubling it, the total would be too small to be profitably sent direct Home in a fast steamer. Fast steamers must be large, and to be run profitably must have large cargoes. The Dunedin company have made no endeavor, as far as we are aware, to obtain the co-operation of other districts in providing cargoes of frozen produce for a specially fitted steamer, yet they cannot possibly fill such steamers themselves except at considerable intervals. Do they intend to try sending meat Home by sailing vessel ? Why should the experiment not be tried ? At a meeting held at Dunedin in February last, the Hon. Matthew Holmes said the drawback to sending the meat by a sailing vessel was that it might remain on the Line for perhaps a month, when the meat would be submitted to an injurious temperature. His impression was that a permanent success could not be expected unless they they bad steamers taking the meat Horae direct via Cape Horn, in which case the meat would not be more than two days on the Line. But why should the meat be exposed to an injurious temperature on the Line ? It is the very function of the freezing machinery on board to maintain a low temperature, and as temperature and not time is the all important consideration, the difficulty of sending frozen meat Home by sailing vessel seems surmountable by increasing the power of the freezing machinery. The meat once frozen can be kept frozen under any climate if the machinery is of sufficient capacity and is kept at work, and if kept frozen con undergo no change. II the temperature of the stowage room can be kept below freezing point in the tropics, and we understand it can be done, and for any length of time if proper attention is paid to it, it does not matter how hot the sun is overhead, nor how long the ship is becalmed on the Line ; the meat would be as safe as the mammoths frozen for untold thousands of years

in the ice banks of Siberia. The cost of freezing and keeping frozen the first shipment by the Protos was stated to be only three farthings per pound ; supposing this cost were doubled by the longer voyage of a sailing ship it would not be a prohibitive cost, even if there were no compensating difference in freights in favor of sailing vessels as compared with steamships.' The freezing machinery required on board is not very expensive, and does not take up very much space. There does not appear any sufficient objection to the experiment being tried of fitting up one of our sailing grain vessels with freezing machinery and stowing space for a few hundred tons of meat to test the practicability of sending meat Horae by that means. If it should succeed there would be some chance of a trade springing up which might soon assume such dimensions as would justify and require the use of large steamers specially constructed for the trade, and in the meantime quite a number of our ports could be made shipping places. If it would pay to fit up one or a few ships, and send Home one or a few shipments of meat, it would pay to go largely into the business, and there is no reason why half the wheat ships (which cannot safely fill altogether with wheat) should not also take Home meat, butter, potatoes, and other produce preserved on the voyage by the refrigerating process. And if this can be done, there is no reason, or will be none when the harbor works ore finished, why Timaru should not be a large exporter of frozen produce, as well as of grain, to the Old Country.