The Wairarapa Daily. TUESDAY, MAY 10, 1887. EXTENSION OF THE FROZEN MEAT TRADE.

Wairarapa Daily Times, Volume IX, Issue 2594, 10 May 1887, Page 2

The Wairarapa Daily. TUESDAY, MAY 10, 1887. EXTENSION OF THE FROZEN MEAT TRADE.

According to Mr Buchanan, the export of frozen meat to England last year was a sort of safety-valve for the colony. Our financial position has been such that the rapid expansion of this industry materially assisted in tiding us over our engagements and

helped the very lame New Zealand dog over the proverbial style. Low prices and competition from other countries have hampered sadly the work ef developing our frozen meat export, but still it makes headway, and now and then a gleam of sunsliine encourages those who ha#3 invested capital in the enterprise and who have entered heart and soul into the struggle of making it a permanent success. One of the last new features in the trade is the introduction of regular supplies of New Zealand mutton at Paris. To some

it may seem strange to find a demand in this gay capital for colonial meat, It has been a popular belief that in France the admirable and perfect cooking of meats render [the question of raw material of which the dishes are composed, a matter of indifference. Aged horses have been converted, so it is said, into delightful stews, and in

hard times cats, rats, and other domestic animals have succumbed to the food demand; nevertheless, there is still a market in Paris for the legitimate butchers meat as somewhere about two millions sheeps carcases are annually consumed in the French

metropolis, and as the rural pursuits of the country are unfavorable to the fattening of live stock there is an excellent opening for outside graziers. Frozen meat is now said to be largely, imported into France from the Argentine Republic, and the South American article can be vended at a lower price than the New Zealand meat, but theft it is not nearly so sweet arid nutritious as our supplies, and it never can be, i

as this climate is almost unique for pastoral pursuits. At any rate, a

regular market for New ZealanS mutton has been established in Paris, and perhaps the time may come when even direct shipments may be made to France. New Zealand, unlike Rome, is not to be saved—with all due

deference to our legislators—by the cackling of geese, but by the rigid carcasses of its frozen Bheep, In the dim future we can almost see vessels clustering round our wharves, all laden with the finest and most delicious meat in the world, outward bound not' only for London but for France and Germany in the far west, and .for India and Japan in the East. We may even some day carry the New Zealand flag into New York harbor and supply American epicures with finer meat than they can obtain from their own broad prairies, Our American cousins may grow meat cheaper than we can, but then the extremes of heat and cold which characterise the climate of the States hardens the fibres of their animals and makes their meat necessarily inferior to ours.