A PRACTICAL SUGGESTION.

Waikato Times, Volume XXXVIII, Issue 3118, 9 July 1892, Page 2 (Supplement)

A PRACTICAL SUGGESTION.

Mb Mackie, an old colonist, wrote, to the Manchester Examiner as follows on the mutton trade :—The practical question is : How are the vast meat supplies of Australia and New Zealand to be brought direct to the enormous multitude of possible consumers i a the United Kingdom who would welcome them if they could he obtained at a lower cost than at present, as they unquestionably could be ? Clearly the first step to be taken is to organise some responsible body to receive, distribute and retail the meat on this side at prices that would leave a moderate profit to the grazier and the distributor, and ensure a large trade. The person to take the initiative, as they have the greatest interest at stake, are the pastoralists at the Antipodes. But they probably find that the care of an independent and a widespead distributing agency 12,000 mites away from their homes would absorb more money to start it than they could conveniently command, to say nothing of diverting their energies from the occtijjation they understand best. If that he so, why should not a separate organisation bs formed to undertake a business so genuine, so promising, and so closely affecting the material domestic welfare of the English jjuople, and especially the poor. The trade is carried on now most unsatisfactorily, having chiefly London for a market and no exclusive ageucy of its own. The teeming industrial hives of Lancashire and Yorkshire are unjustly deprived of a wholesome staple food at low prices. If the enterprising capitalists of the great northern counties would take thp matter up in earnest, it would not be many years before a line of steamers, fitted with the refrigerators, would be plying between Manchester or Liverpool and Australia and New Zealand with cargoes of meat, butter, eggs, wine, orchard fruit, oranges, olives, and other exports which our kinsfolk could advantageously send us. As regards frozen mtat, it is now proved beyond doubt that for 2d per lb it could be brought from Australia to England and sold, and possibly this charge could be cut down to Hd per lb. If Australian graziers were sure of getting even 31-rl or <td per lb in London or Lancashire for frozen meat, they would do well enough. Every port in Australia and New Zealand would then have its freezing establishment, and the insatiable middleman ' would no longer pocket the large saving which ought to be secured to the retail buyer.