THE Wairarapa Age MORNING DAILY. THURSDAY, SEPTEMBER 17, 1908. REFRIGERATION CONGRESS.

Wairarapa Age, Volume XXXI, Issue 2993, 17 September 1908, Page 4

THE Wairarapa Age MORNING DAILY. THURSDAY, SEPTEMBER 17, 1908. REFRIGERATION CONGRESS.

Tne international congress upon the question of refrigeration, which is to be held in Paris at the beginning of October, deals with an industrial development of the most profound interest to the nations and to none more than to New Zealand. For not only does the recent prosoerity of New Zealand depend peculiarly upon the refrigerator, but our encouraging prospects are interwoven with the growth and expansion of this most modern method of preserving perishable foods. Our earlier settlers can look back to the time when salt and smoke were 'the only preservatives, known to the food suppliers of the world; and until comparatively recently only the hermetically-sealed tin had reinforced those ancient and primitive methods. To-day every ship of passenger-carrying reputation furnishes to its company fresh food of every description, while by the same beneficent scientific invention the distant markets of the United j Kingdom and of Europe are supplied I with fresh foods produced on New

Zealand farms. It is not too much o say that half y,the terror of travel ms been stripped away by thiß wholesome change in the bill of fare; md it i 3 equally correct to, assert ;hat the social conditions of theen;ire civilised world are being rapidly revolutionised from the same cause. That a dweller in London would svei eat at his daily meals freßh food from the antipodes would, not long ago, have been regarded as absolutely impossible. Yet in les3 than a generation this magical happening ha 9 buen brought about and our fresh New'Zjaland produce forms an important and regular contribution to the markets of Britain j and Europe. New Zealand is becoming more integrally a part of the United Kingdom than isolated British countries were a few generations ago. Already our butter and mutton can reach London in six or seven weeks. We are thus becoming so closely and intimately-associaled with one another that bonds of union instead of being weakened by distance are strengthened and increased. Countries which depend economically upon one another are always dear to one another, and Britain's colonies depend upon her for the markets which make settlement possible as she depends upon them for the fresh food which has so completely and beneficially altered the social conditions of her people.