II 



supply. In speaking of this subject official evidence can be 

 adduced. The issue can be put in one short sentence : The, 

 meat supply of Perth and Fremaiitle hills far below what it ought 

 to be in quantity and quality, because there are not in the vicinity 

 of those centres pasturage grounds that will for the greater part of 

 the year maintain the drafts of the butcher in flesh. Hence, those 

 drafts have to be small and intermittent ; the purveyors cannot 

 muster on the seaboard a reserve stock of sheep and cattle, because 

 they would fall away in weight ; they have to buy only for almost 

 immediate needs, and the public have to pay in the added price of 

 meat for this defective and precarious system. If the butchers had 

 proper feeding places near the slaughtering yards, they could carry 

 on their business and reinforce their supplies on a much sounder 

 and more helpful basis, and the consumer would get the benefit of 

 the margin of wasting and loss being greatly reduced. That 

 is to say, if cattle brought from the Kimberley district, the chief 

 breeding ground, could be rested and topped up after their journey, 

 before being slaughtered, the retail price per pound of their 

 carcases could be reduced, because there would be so many more 

 pounds of meat per beast to sell. This was part of the evidence 

 that was given by leading members of the trade and pastoralists 

 before the Parliamentary Joint Committee of both Houses that, on 

 the motion of Mr. Charles Harper, M.L.A., President of the Hureau 

 of Agriculture, sat during last session. The committee was 

 appointed to enquire into the causes of the present high price of 

 meat and to suggest such means as may appear most desirable for 

 the purpose of effecting a reduction in the price of good whole- 

 some meat to the consumer, without too seriously endangering the 

 future of the pastoral interests. It was shown in the course of the 

 enquiry, which lasted several weeks and embraced all phases of the 

 question, that the quality of the meat would be greatly improved if 

 the cattle could be slaughtered on the pasture grounds, and 

 that the nearest place where pasture grounds could be obtained 

 was near Muchea, on the Midland line. So far the Govern- 

 ment has not announced its intention to carry the recommenda- 

 tions of the committee into effect, and the position of affairs 

 still offers great inducements to cultivators to lay down 

 paddocks near Fremantle, or at Jandakot, for instance, with 

 lucerne, which would tide the butchers over the dilemma. 

 Another purpose for which the coast country between 

 Fremantle and Mandurah is admirably adapted, and for 

 which very few acres, comparatively speaking, are now em- 

 ployed, is the production of culinary vegetables. It might 

 be made the South Brighton and Cheltenham of the west, 

 for the soil is very similar to that south of Melbourne, which 

 for twenty miles by about eight broad has been made a 

 cabbage garden, or rather a thousand cabbage gardens, for none 

 of the blocks are more than rifteen acres, and some of them 



