Qfoivlh and Development of the Trade in Frozen Mutton. 213- 
South Wales and Victorian exports, on the Air larger contribiiLions 
of the last-named colony, and her steadier, if not actually growing, 
supplies. But with the records of the past twelve months has 
come another of those sudden and surprising changes which the 
frozen trade exhibits. Victoria has, for the moment, passed alto- 
gether out of sight as an exporter. No Melbourne cargoes have 
come here at all ; aud Sydney, whence the trade seemed dwin- 
dling to nothing in 1885 and 188G, has on the contrary sent out 
just as much mutton as both ports furnished a year ago : this, 
again, being nearly twice as much as she ever exported before 
since the records of the frozen trade began to tell their story. 
I must confess I am unable to give an entirely adequate 
reason for the very latest change, which may perhaps be caused 
by local climatic conditions. A simple contrast, however, be- 
tween the relative sheep stocks and the mutton exports of these 
two colonies will show how dangerous it is to conclude that the 
biggest trade will necessarily develop from the largest nominal 
flock, apart from the local conditions on which, rather than on the 
stocks behind it, a trade like this depends. The data for the seven 
years in which our mutton receipts are fully shown are these : — 
Year 
Victoria 
New South Wales 
Sheep 
Mutton imported 
therefrom 
Sheep 
Mutton imported 
therefrom 
1882 
1883 
1884 
1885 
1886 
1887 
1888 
10,174,000 
10,739,000 
10,637,000 
10,682,000 
10,700,000 
10,624,000 
10,600,000 
cwts. 
23,133 
10,371 
35,094 
44,489 
32,947 
21,518 
Nil 
36,115,000 
37,916,000 
31,660,000 
37,821,000 
30,169,000 
46,965,000 
46,170,000 
cwts. 
8,336 
21,376 
26,364 
9,085 
4,762 
20,927 
44,435 
Such figures show that, with a stock of sheep one fourth as 
large as New South Wales, Victoria had, up to the year 1886, 
sent us nearly seven times as much mutton. Even now, giving 
Sydney the benefit of the whole 44,000 cwts. exported in 1888, her 
total output of frozen mutton is far below what Victoria has sent. 
There is another consideration of which this analysis of the 
purely Australian trade reminds me. The Australian portion 
of our obscurely defined and so-called "unenumerated" meat 
imports, which had assumed important dimensions before freezing 
began, was largely mutton in tins. There may be, therefore, some 
room to suspect that we should err if we regarded that portion 
of the frozen trade which comes from these colonies as a wholly 
new development, and not rather, at least to some extent, a mere 
change in the form of import. If New South Wales and Vic- 
