AUSTRALIA’S EXPORT MEAT.

Taranaki Daily News, 21 November 1921, Page 7

AUSTRALIA’S EXPORT MEAT.

DARWIN WORKS CLOSED INDEFINITELY. Sydney, Oct. 19. The announcement by the British firm of Vesteys, Ltd., that they have finally decided to close their meat works at Darwin indefinitely and that all hands except the caretaker had been discharged is a bitter disappointment to those who had built great hopes for the development of the Northern Territory upon the activities of the firm, and has an important bearing upon the meat export trade. The works have now been closed for a considerable period, mainly owing to crippling industrial troubles and the unsuitability of the wharfage facilities. When the Federal Public Works Committee, which is investigating the North-South railway project, was in Darwin recently, the managing director of the meat works, Mr. Conaeher, explained that the obsolete appliances at the wharf rendered the handling of goods (import and export) extremely expensive. The pastoral interests operated by Vestey’s totalled 30,000 square miles. The stock included 150,000 cattle in the Territory and 80,000 in Western Australia. The majority of the stock went to the meat works at Darwin and Wyndham. It would take nearly six months, Mr. Conacher said, to drove them to Adelaide. In Wells and bores £75,000 had been spent. A railway would enable the company to offer a price for fat stock, which would bring the cattle from further south to Darwin. The line would develop trade with the East. There was a big demand in Java for live-stock, which was chiefly supplied from Western Australia. It was all a matter of freight. Landing charges at the wharf were now 17s, against 4s a few years ago. Reasonable wharf facilities would reduce the latter sum and render pillage difficult. His was a British firm up against the American Trust. A good wharf was vital to re-opening the meat works. He had paid £5 a head for cattle and lost on them; but with the economies indicated he could pay £B. The annual freight was about 80,000 tons. The Wyndham State Meat Works in North-West Australia are not in operation in consequence of extortionate demands made by the employees.