AUSTRALASIAN TRADE EXPANSION.

Waipa Post, Volume I, Issue 19, 20 June 1911, Page 4

AUSTRALASIAN TRADE EXPANSION.

MR KIDMAN ON THE PROSPECTS -I " Yes, I do say there are good inducements for trade between Australia and America in mutton, butter, and beef," said Mr Arthur Kidman in reply to an Australian interviewer. Mr Kidman thought that there was also room for a good trade in butter with America and Canada. Canadian and American butter had a lot of leeway to make up before any comparison could be made with the Australian product. Speaking generally, American methods of producing butter were entirely wrong, whereas Australia had got almost all sections of that industry down to a fine art. The greater part of the butter produced in Canada and the United States was much inferior to the Australian. The co-operative system had not made much headway with them. To his mind a large percentage of their butter contained fully 20 per cent of moisture, or even more. The food stores or markets throughout England, Canada, and America, particularly the two last-named countries, were equipped on very much more up-to-date lines than in Australia ; and from the hygienic and attractive point of view alone provided a good object-lesson for the majority of Australian retail perishable food stores.

In answer to a question as to Argentine competition, Mr Kidman said that Argentine people had concentrated their efforts on London trade. The reasons of their success were their more perfect organisation, their more regular shipping, and their better preparation of meat generally. The meat was not better than Australian meat, but, the distance to London being much shorter, the bulk of the meat was chilled, not frozen, and commanded better prices.