AUSTRALIA AND THE FOOD PROBLEM 123 



on a time-schedule. The city also has municipal 

 cold-storage plants.^ 



Even in the early days of the produce export 

 department the state proved itself a good business 

 agent. When there was little goods for export it 

 rented its cold-storage rooms to butchers, produce- 

 dealers, etc. It lost money for a long time, it is 

 true, on its rabbit-sorting and refrigeration, but it 

 received indirect returns in the greater capacity of 

 the country to raise sheep through the mitigation of 

 the rabbit pest. 



When stock is delivered at Port Adelaide and the 

 government does the slaughtering it returns the 

 skin and fat to the owner but reserves to itself 

 the other by-products, which it uses scientifically. 

 Even live poultry is received, killed, and dressed, 

 graded, frozen, packed, shipped, insured, and sold 

 by the government, and the amount remitted, all 

 according to a schedule of charges furnished the 

 producers in advance. 



In 1909 the minister of agriculture estimated that 

 the produce export department had added $10 an 

 acre to the value of all lands in South Australia fit 

 for growing lambs, butter, wine, or fruit. As soon 

 as the export department paid 4 per cent, on its 

 capital the charges were to be reduced. Even be- 

 fore 1900 it showed a profit of 3 per cent, on the 

 capital in vested. 2 



^ The Collectivist State in the Making, Emil Davies, p. 71. 

 ^Newest England, Henry D. Lloyd, pp. 325^. 



