AUSTRALIAN SURPLUS STOCK.

Southland Times, Issue 910, 4 March 1868, Page 3

AUSTRALIAN SURPLUS STOCK.

(From the " S A Register.") The greatest expectation of a revival of prosperity that the pastoral class in these Colonies seems to entertain is based on the hope that the export of preserved meat will establish a minimum price for fat stock. "Wool is down, and boilingdown for tallow scarcely pays the cost of producing fat stock ; but if an indefinite market for meat should be opened up, there will then be a certain return for the produce of every run. A fixed basis will be established for calculating profits. Hitherto, while expenses have been pretty certain, profits have been fluctuating, and there has been more speculation about the main industry of the country than is desirable. In discussing what Australia could do in the way of shipping meat to Europe, reference has been often made to South America, In the Brazils and in the country watered by the La Plsta, there is a large area of splendid pastoral country, and 'stock-rearing is carried on upon ad extensive scale. And the American ports on the South Atlantic are half the distance from the European market that the most favored Australian port is. It is often asked, therefore, whether the competition of South America would not be felt severely in the business of supplying preserved meat. Whatever is done in Australia, cannot it be equnlly done at Buenos Ayres ? Any method of preserving meat that can be adopted here can also be adopted there ; and will not the greater proximity to market give our rivals a great and permanent advantage . in the competition ? Considerable light has been thrown on this point in a letter addressed to the "Times" by Mr Wilfred Latham— a gentleman whom that journal describes as one of the best informed sheep farmers in the Argentine Republic. Mr Latham, speaking for that part of South America in which he resides, says that the stock of the country is not less than 22,000,000 head of cattle, and 40,000,000 sheep. The pastures are so fully stocked that there is no room for any further increase, and the' reduction of the surplus stock into some exportable form is a necessity. Six or seven millions of sheep per annum have to be thus disposed of, and yet the export of meat to Europe is small. The export takes the form of hides, tallow, and charqui, i.e., the skin, the fat, and the flesh. Of these products, the flesh, which is the most eagerly craved by the hungry consumers in Europe, is the least valuable to the squatter. The hide export is worth Beven times the value of the charqui, and the tallow is also three times more valuable. This charqui, or dried "meat, is principally sent away for the food of the slave population of Havana and Brazil. Samples of it have been sent to England, but the working people, after one taste would not touch it again. Mr Latham says that in no country with a free population is charqui acceptable as food. If this is so, if it is only food for slaves, and can only get eaten on compulsion, it is pretty clear that the market for it is dwindling. For as slavery is doomed all the world over, there will not much longer be a population to consume slave diet. But why cannot the Argentine squatters feed free men as well as slaves? Why cannot they preserve their meal in some palatable form, as well as in the hard juceless shape of charqui? Mi Latham says the stock is of the wrong quality. They have never been bred with an eye to that purpose, and the flesh will not stand the preserving process. He describes the sheep as small tender- fleshed animals, but the flocks and herds are very wild, and cannot yield meat such as the British public are accustomed to from domesticated animals It would take, he says, two or three pounds of Argentine meat in its usua" condition to equal the nutritive value oi on 8 pound of English-fed . meat, anc under such circumstances the cos*; o: curing and shipping would not be met da the receipts.

At the samo time be says tliat the country is quite capable of supplying the English demand. The fault is not in the pastures, but in the stock. If the native herds are replaced by the best meatproducing breads, or are improved by crosss'i n_r, and it' a system of domestication supers -dcs tho wild roaming the stock of the rouiit-'y ia indulged in, meat of the reqjii-ii'a succulence for the English market could be produced in indefinite quantity. Bub to bring about this result will obviously require a good deal of time, and a large expenditure of capital and skill. Mr Latham says that neither the capital nor the skill exist in the country, and that England must send across those requisites if it wishes to get the fruits of them. There is plenty of scope for scientific grazers who have capital at command, but in its present state the country cannot respond to (he English j demand for palatable meat, i From this account it would appear that j the advantage which South America has in its proximity to market is neutralised by the inferiority of its stock. But how far would the same confession have to be made of Australian stock ? Some of our well-fatted beasts that come to market might compare favorably with the domesticated cattle of England : but how about the bulk of the herds that are weekly disposed of in our sale yards ? As long as beef and mutton are liable to an indefinite depreciation in price, it will probably not pay to prepare domesticated stock for the shambles. But it seems clear that it would pay if a market for exported meat were securely established — a market that would only be open for meat of really good quality — such as could find a ready sale when presented sidd by side with the ordinary butchers' meat of the English shambles. If, therefore, the freezing process which is being developed by Mr Mort, or any other equivalent process, comes into steady and profitable operation, it will have the effect, not merely of providing a new export, and establishing all our pastoral industry on a firmer basis, but it will tend also to civilise that pastoral industry. There will be a direct and powerful inducement to improve all our meat producing breeds. Enclosures and domestication will become the order of the day. Squatting will become transformed into grazing. Large unimproved runs will give place to smaller and better tended grazing farms. Population will be thickened and more settled, and stockrearing will become a more skilled business than it is at present.