54 CANADA - AGRICULTURAL ECOXOMY IN GENERAL 



The greatest area tor cold storage is therefore owned by the abattoir 

 companies. These are most complete!}" organized. They buy live stock 

 ill the centres most conveniently supplied, kill it in their own slaughter- 

 houses, manufacture the by-products elaborateh' and efficiently and pre- 

 serve the whole in their refrigerated warehouses. Thus they can keep 

 dres.sed meat as an article of trade longer than the local butcher, and sup- 

 ply the home or the foreign market as opportunity arises. Three of these 

 huge companies control trade still further, for they have retail branches 

 in the larger cities to which they consign about 40 per cent, of the merchan- 

 dise they sell for home consumption, allowing these branches a slight reduc- 

 tion on cost. One of these latter companies has about forty and another 

 about eight}' of such retail stores. As retailers the abattoir companies 

 have an immense advantage over small butchers because the}' can so easily 

 manufacture by-products. They ought in consequence to allow for a smal- 

 ler margin of profit when selling, and to be able to pay a higher price to 

 the producer, but the investigation under the order-in-council of 10 Novem- 

 ber 1916 has not shown that either of these consequences has been realized. 



The abattoir companies have a .secondary but considerable trade in 

 butter, cheese, eggs and fish. 



b) Distrihution oj Refrigerated Space among Public and Private Estab- 

 lishments. — The cold storage warehouses, owned by the various kinds 

 of companies which have been mentioned, belong to the three classes of 

 public and subsidized, public l^ut not subsidized, and private warehouses. 

 In theory a public warehouse is one which stores goods belonging to the ge- 

 neral public, a private warehou.se one which itself trades in the goods it 

 stores. In fact however almost all the so-called " private " warehouses 

 are to some extent " public ", and the report of the investigation gives one 

 instance of a large " public " warehouse which derives almo.st its whole 

 profit from its own trade. 



The plan of subsidizing these warehouses was instituted in 1907 by 

 the Canadian Department of Agriculture to meet a necessity for more space 

 for public storing. The government makes to newly organized cold sto- 

 rage establishments a total grant of 30 per cent, of the cost of constructior, 

 15 per cent, being paid in the first year, 7 per cent, in the second, 4 per 

 cent, in the third, 2 per cent, in the fourth and 2 per cent, in the fifth. A 

 warehouse thus subsidized is required by law to store goods for otheri^than 

 its owners on request. The grant has been completely paid to twenty- 

 five warehouses ; and eight have already received instalments thereof 

 amounting to $132,539, while $20,953 ^.re still due to them. Only three 

 of the subsidized warehouses limit themselves to storing for the outside 

 public. The others contend that their warehouses are not sufficiently 

 used by the public and do not thus yield them a sufficient income to enable 

 them to meet their expenses without also themselves trading in the stored 

 commodities. 



Out of the total refrigerated area of more than twenty-four million 

 cubic feet 3,823,780 cubic feet belong to the public and subsidized ware- 

 houses, 6,505,804 cubic feet to the public but not subsidized warehouses. 



