CHINA 199 



ceased with the rise in the exchange which later eventuated. 

 With the return of exchange to a normal level, the compara- 

 tively low price of meats in the immediate neighbourhood and 

 the comparatively low cost of labour wall doubtless make it 

 practically impossible for American packers to compete with 

 local interests save only in tine and special products. 



The Hongkong Dairy Farm Company, Limited, for a consider- 

 able period has been experimenting with the packing of meats of 

 different sorts for use in outports and aboard ship, including the 

 tinning of beef and various meat products. It is now an- 

 nounced that the business has passed the experimental stage, 

 and that the concern is arranging to can meats upon a large 

 scale. Already the company has secured practically entire con- 

 trol of the trade in hams, bacon, and similar goods along the 

 China coast, and its goods have been successfully shipped to 

 other parts of the world, including Great Britain. 



It has been found by repeated experiments that conditions in 

 the meat-packing trade in this field are vastly different in every 

 way from those in Europe and the United States. The work 

 done in Hongkong so far has been under the superintendence 

 of a British meat expert of many years' experience, and prac- 

 tically everything undertaken on the basis of British practice 

 has been a failure there until methods meeting conditions in 

 Hongkong were worked out. Such an undertaking as the one 

 now being developed is likely to have an important bearing 

 upon the sale of tinned American meats in that field. 



Refrigerated steamers are shortly to be put on the route 

 between San Francisco and Tientsin to carry beef from the 

 Shantung and Honan provinces of China. The beef from 

 these provinces is of excellent quality, and far and away the 

 best in China. The quality of this Chinese beef compares, 

 according to statements made by the veterinary of the American 

 troops stationed at Tientsin, very favourably with the Austra- 

 lian beef, while the Russian authorities prefer it by far to the 

 latter. The United States troops in the Philippines are being 

 supplied with Chinese beef. 



Recently a large steamer flying the French flag landed 3000 

 tons of frozen beef at Port Said from China, Manchurian beef 

 of very excellent quality. This is known to have been the second 

 shipment from that quarter, and it is said that other cargoes are 

 being sent. 



