New Zealand Meat in London.

Te Aroha News, Volume V, Issue 268, 30 May 1888, Page 6

New Zealand Meat in London.

Exactly two years ago Lord Lamington gave notice in the House of Lords of a question similar to that which was put in the House of Commons the other night by Captain Cotton and answered by Sir Michael Hicks-Beach. The question concerns not national or imperial policy, but household economy, and for that reason it comes all the more warmly 10 ' the business and bosoms * of most of us. Butchers without number s^ll imported moat as home produce, thereby causing injury and loss not only to the consumer but also to the home grower of beef and mutton. How can this be pre\ented? The practice is very common and very easy. The butcher has> only to say nothing about his hcrf coming from America and his mutton from New Zealand to get the one accepted as ' prime Scotch ' and the other a?. Southdown or Wel&h. This is not wonderful. For years the stock-raisei> of Ameiica have been improving the breed of their cattle by importations from England, and the faunas of New Zealand, especially of the district of Canterbuiy, have so assiduously ' eroded ' their sheep that the) can now produce as good animals as can be desired for the market. Indeed, what with this and the perfection of the refrigerating process, if a housewife who understands the marks of good meat were shown r-wo legs of i\ ellbung ' Southdown ' mutton, she would, in all probability, choose the one which had actually been brought from the Antipode-. But it may be said, 'If New Zealand mutton, for instance, is as good as English, ■what harm is done by the present practice except to the butcher's character?' Firstly, it is unjust to the colonies, since they do not get the credit of producing first class meat and sending it in perfect condition to our doors, and since they do not reap such benefit in increased trade and profit a* they are thus entitled to. The best consignments of New Zealand mutton are so promptly taken up by certain butchers-, hot-els, and restaurants (to be .sold aj> English) that what remains to be humbly presented in market and hhop is not fairly representative of New Zealand meat, or is not from New Zealand at all, but from Victoria or the River Plate or the Falkland Islands ; for tens of thousands of frozen carcases of sheep and lambs are brought overy week into the Thames and the Mersey from these distant regions River Plate mutton is small and muscular : Falkland mutton is fairly good and is improving ; Melbourne is good but lean. All irozen muttons when properly dealt with are fit for food : but that all should take the name and credit of the best, or should deny having been frozen at all, is most unfair. A householder, bay, has regular dealings -Kith a butcher and expects to betreatedhonestly. He pays from tenpence to sixteenpence a pound' for his beef and mutton, and pays it with little grumbling because the joints cut well and eat well. Somehow he learns that such joints as he has been pacing the ' prime price for can be had at from sixpence to ninepence a pound of a butcher who drives a ' cash ' trade and who does not mind confessing that his beef is from America and his mutton from New Zealand and Victoria Then the householder surely does well to be angry. Sir Michael H. Beach has declared, for the householder's comfort, that he behe\es (he is not sure) that the peccant butcher may be prosecuted under the Sale of Food and Drugs Act of 1885. It is possible, though we doubt it. But how is the offence to be brought home to the butcher ? Who is skilled enough to tell an American carcase of beef from a Scotch, or a New Zealand sheep from a Southdown, especially when it is shown cut up into loints? There is one way, however, open to paterfamilias of cornering the butcher. If he has not yet learned the marks by which the practised eye can direct the meat that has ' travelled,' let him try the following -.—lf the joint of beef when cooked and cut yields little juice, and if when cold it has lost flavour, then he may venture to assure the butcher that the beef is American and that a deduction per pound must be made on the price feet down. He may make a similar experiment and declaration with his mutton ; only the mutton of New Zealand, when hot, eats, on the whole, better than English mutton. - English paper.