ME A T EX FOR T TRA DE. 215 



an immense advantage in tliat tlioy pay wages, rent, etc., in jiapor or 

 silver currency, and are paid for tlieir meat in gold at an enonnouH 

 premium. Freight charges also ouly amounts to id. per lb. as against 

 ^d.j the rate from New South Wales. 



Co)n-lxis\un. 



It was the sheep-farmer who initiated and found woi-k for the first 

 freezing companies of New Zealand and guaranteed them freight, and it 

 was by the interest and guidance of these sheep-farmers that the com- 

 panies were controlled. What New Zealand has done we can do. If 

 Australia has disadvantages, she has also advantages ; and if the meat 

 export trade is economically and wisely managed it must result in great 

 benefit to the whole Colony. It will not ccune in a month nor in a year, 

 but it will come. As has been well said of the American trade, " It is 

 a trade that like every other good thing has had to be fought for and 

 conquered," and Australian stockowners need not expect to come out 

 on top without a tough struggle. The capacity of European popula- 

 tions for meat-eating has never yet been tested. That is now our 

 business, and we must not expect it to be all plain sailing. The popu- 

 lation of the world is every day increasing, and in spite of all that can 

 and will be done to develop the food-producing powers of land there is 

 and must be an unlimited market for food. With a revival in trade, 

 more meat will certainly be consumed. The population of our great 

 competitor, the United States, is steadily, if slowly, overtaking the 

 meat supply. That supply is not increasing, but has actually decreased 

 during the past few years. In any case the States meat ])roduction is 

 not likely to go beyond its former maximum, and an increase in the future 

 can only come from more expensively fed stock, as by degrees what are 

 called range, or merely grass-fed cattle, must die out. With economy 

 in production, abundant, and inexpensive cold storage, with lower rates 

 of freight and insurance, the frozen meat industry of Australia is indeed 

 capable of great expansion. Fastidious British consumers may turn up 

 their noses at our frozen meat ; but in time the great mass of the 

 people will find in it a palatable and necessary food, and it is to the 

 masses we must look for support. 



The possibilities of the expansion of our meat export trade with the 

 United Kingdom are simply enormous. The country must take our 

 meat. The awful consequences that Avould result from the cutting oif 

 of foreign food supplies from the United Kingdom were strongly urged 

 lately in London, and attention was directed to the enormous amount 

 of English capital invested in the live and dead meat trade. Even a 

 few days' failure in the foreign meat supply of London would be a 

 national disaster. The Board of Trade returns for September show 

 that over 2,400 tons of frozen meat is landed in England every montli 

 in addition to 33,000 live cattle and 75,000 live sheep. AVe have oidy 

 made a small start in what will prove to be one of the greatest 

 industries in which New South Wales has ever engaged. .Merino 

 mutton at a price is becoming distinctly more marketable, not so much 

 because consumers are changing their taste, as because wo are tmdnig 

 out those consumers to whom that particular meat is acceptable. 

 Doubtless, too, prejudice is being to some extent removed. 



