NEW ZEALAND AND REFRIGERATION. (Specially written for Progress.)

Progress, Volume II, Issue 8, 1 June 1907, Page 286

NEW ZEALAND AND REFRIGERATION. (Specially written for Progress.)

Now that twenty five years have sped since the installation of refrigerating machinery in New Zealand we are in a position not only to form some judgment of the extent to which as a colony we are indebted to the discovery of the process, but also with fair accuracy to create a mental picture of what our colony would now be had the process never been discovered. And in the attempt to accomplish this we find ourselves confronted with these inquiries : — What were the facts about this country a generation ago relatively to those of to-day ? What progress has been made in the meantime ? What proportion of^the progress has been due directly or indirectly to the refrigerating process],? \ yj Firstly, we are to note that for some years prior to the formation of the first freezing companies in the colony in 1882 the country had been in anything but a state of prosperity. Following hard upon the heels of a period of State borrowing and extravagance, there had set in a prolonged period of borrowing and retrenchment. A heavy fall in the prices of our staple products had produced commercial depression. Heavy taxation was imposed on all property. Every week men were leaving the country for more congenial shores. In 1880 the population of New Zealand was less than half a million and the public debt twenty eight millions. The total exports for 1882 amounted to six and a quarter millions. Secondly, we find that to-day New Zealand has vastly progressed in twenty-five years. With a population of close on nine hundred thousand, a public debt of approximately sixty millions and a total export trade of over seventeen millions, she already claims the attention of the nations. Thus we find that during the twenty- five years New Zealand has almost doubled her population, more than doubled her public debt, and increased her export trade by ten and a half millions. The following tables show other forms of increase :—: — 1881 1891 190G L Total cattle in N.Z. 698,637 831,831 1,810 936 Total sheep in N.Z. 12,985,085 18,128,186 19,130,875] Railways open for traffic 1333 miles 2407 miles Telegraph lines 3824 miles 8355 miles 1890 1905 Savings bank deposits £2,441,876 £9,773,954 Unimproved value of land 75,497,379 137,168,548 Value of Improvements 35,640,335 81,254,004 Total private wealth 142,631,461 258,710,000 Wealth per head 288 293 In 1882 a trial shipment of frozen meat left the colony, and the venture proving an unqualified success, immediately five factories were established in different centres, a number that has since increased four-fold Not till some years later did the public recognise the tremendous importance of the process as affecting the dairy industry ; but a glance at the figures above reveals the fact that during the last fourteen years the total number of cattle in the colony has increased by a million head — a fact that speaks for itself. The export figures for the year ending March 1906 are :— Frozen meat and tallow .... £3, 034, 934 Butter and cheese 1,613,728 Total £4,648,662 This total considerably exceeds the value of our average annual wool export for the

last thirteen years, during which penod the latter has considerably fluctuated but shows no steady or permanent increase. And though last year the wool export reached an unprecedented figure, yet it may reasonably be expected that in a few years wool will be ousted from the position it has heretofore held as our leading product, and its place taken by frozen-meat, tallow, butter cheese — all the direct products of the refrigerating process. It is clear that without refrigeration New Zealand would be practically an immense sheep-walk, little known to the rest of the world except for its scenery and shooting and fishing — insignificant islands where the settlers vegetate thirteen thousand miles from civilisation. Under the regime of refrigeration we can fairly claim that New Zealand is not surpassed by any British possession in the world as a country for settlers with small means, or as a county for the toiler who lives by the sweat of his brow. The country must be prosperous where work is so plentiful and labourers so few that one thousand navvies have to be requisitioned -from England to complete its railways.