The Daily News. TUESDAY, AUGUST 6, 1901. TRADE WITH SOUTH AFRICA.

Taranaki Daily News, Volume XXIII, Issue 174, 6 August 1901, Page 2

The Daily News. TUESDAY, AUGUST 6, 1901. TRADE WITH SOUTH AFRICA.

Discussing the question of trade with South Africa at the annual meeting of tho Canterbury Farmers' 00-opcrative Society, the chairman is reported in tha Ohristchurch Press as follows " Seeing that Eedsration in Australia was likely to limit our openings thore, and thinking that South Africa was I likely to prove a good market fer out' food products, your directors, in conjunction with the Timaru Association, sent our Sydney agent to South Africa to repor c , ard if h found th© situation favourable, to. make arrangements fer opening a peiiaarent agency, there foe our two Association*. He' arrived there in Januaey, end stayed three months, going to the various centres *nd making an exhaustive search into all the openings there might be for our various lines of farm produce; ani the results of his investigations were, I regret to .ir'orm you, that ho did not see any grounds to warrant the establishment of a sp'ciai permanent agency. ' If,' said he' New Zealand wheat was considerably more popular, or if the agency combined tha representation of some of the *"est flour mills, dairy, meat, end jim factories, and that euitable shipping facilities wf-re available, then it would *bn possible to get sufficiently good results,' He, however, made arrangements with different brokers in the four large shipping ports with whom we are how i?t - a position to make consignments should favourable opportunities arise. T.i summarise his. reports New Zealand wheat, it se-'ms, contains too much moisture, and is not liked out there, tb.-y us'ng the h".vd American an*i Australian wheats, saying New flour does not keep in their climate, aad then the price, too, is lower there thin in London. Oats are only us?d foe military perpaees and a few for seed purposes, so few, however, that ho believes 5000 tons would supply the who's csuttry for a year. American bficon, h&m, and cheese have almost a monopoly, biing bitter got up and keeping better. Butter must be shipped in lib tine-, and oatmeal in 71b and 141b tins. Frozen me.it would have a large opaning here were it not tnat iu that climate lean meat is the only meat they care for, and that without cool stores of our own we could do liathiag, tha whole trade being a monopoly in the hands of two companies, the ' De Beers' and the South /ifrican Supply Company. Meadow hay is not used there. With potato's and onions, however, the case jis difToi'fn l ". I<"i' fchn e or four months in the ytav beginning with Am-il they | might, be -hipped in 70 to 1001b cases [ advan jthey would jot be sound enough to stand the voyage, and tfcen their own crop comes in at the Cape. The trade is cut up info four large shipping ports, the Cap". Port Elizibatfe, JSao't j London, and Dm ban, each hundreds of miles apart, which greit ly adds to j the difficulties of establishing an agency. I myself thv that in con-

siderimg a trade with South Africa w« are apb to be misled by fch* vastness of the country, the Oape to the Zambesi containing over a million of square' miles, but the population of that vast area when the late war commenced was; only, roughly speaking, 4,500,000, of which 3,500,000 were b'ack races, .Kaffirs, Zulus, etc,, whereas the white population, • including the Trajwvaa' and the Orange Frf-o Stat?, was 1:01 mueh bigger than that of Now Zealand, being about 910.000, of which 450,000 were Dutch, mostly Beers oi 1 their farm -', who bay but lit'le of any- | thing. The remaining 470,000, of which 40,000 are of British extraction, are the people we Lava mainly to reckon with now in starting a trade. Of course in a few years under British rule the population and the tradj with it will increase enormously. The was in South Africa and the low prices of wool and grain has made the country turn its attention to the breeding of stout horses for r.he Army, and the Government has very wisely taken up the question of improving the horses iu this country, and has already S9nt home for some sires. This is right enough in its way, but in my humble opinion it has a far surer ard fader' means ready t) j its hand w<?re it to utilise the mosey eei ned by the licensed totali--1 sa^or. When we reflect tha v - onsingle rscing club in Canterbury alone received £12,447 from the totalisator hs l voir, what would be the result if a ! l this vast sum of money earned by the totalisator all over Nut Zealand were devoted to the improvement of tin breed of usefnl horses instead of the whole machinery of racing, as at present, benefiting only a few owners of speedy, weedy two and three-year-olds that are usually unsound in their leg and broken down by the time they come to their maturity. We e a law passed that all money earned by the totalisator was te be given in prizes to horses over three years old carrying a minimum weight of 10>t over not less tb?m two mile* (we need not go quite to the extremes of the Queen's Plates of (jnr forefathers, who ussd to rin four mile heats with 12st up for illoo prizes), the result would ba that without spending one farthing of public money'we should here in New Zealand produce the finest hunters a«d cav.<hy horses in the world, fit to cany a mat for his life by hundreds inateed i-f !>y (nes and twos as at present, There i r o doubt wo have the climate, and ihn class of country suitable, and evei under the present cacditians oar N Zealand horses in South Africa compared favou-ably with those of other countrifs.