140 QUEENSLAND AGRICULTURAL JOURNAL. {1 Ave., 1898, 
middlemen for the past three years. When he was in London he got into 
touch with the agents of the Lake’s Creek Company, and with them formed a 
company now called the Colonial Consignment Distributing Company. The 
idea of this company was that it should distribute meat all over England, and 
not confine its energies to any one place. He had taken a hand in forming 
the company, and when doing so had been very strong on the fact that London 
was not the best distributing centre for England. It was too far south, and was 
not situated among the people who were likely to be the largest consumers of 
Australian meat. The company had already purchased an establishment 
in London, so it was decided to have a second distributing centre, 
and Manchester was the town fixed upor. ‘There was now a canal 
to Manchester, and ships would soon be able to go right into the city, 
within a radius of thirty miles of which there were ten millions of people. The 
River Plate people had made Liverpool their headquarters, but his company 
had gone ahead of that. His company was very ambitious to get into big things 
and do big things, and it was prepared to take all the producers of Australia into 
partnership with it. Thecompany was a co-operative affair, the co-operation being 
to this extent: After it had paid, out of the profits,dividends on the shares up to 
a certain agreed percentage, any surplus profit above that percentage would be 
divided among the consignees of produce in Australia. There was another 
point he would like to speak about, and that was the grading of meat. A good 
deal of discussion was going on about this subject, and it was one the importance 
of which could not be overrated. If a man sent a mixed lot of cattle to market, 
the price of the lot would, in all probability, be fixed by the value of the worst, 
and it was the same with meat. In England the carcasses were graded very 
zarefully, and buyers bought according to the quality of the meat shown in the 
stalls at Smithfield. In short, it was sold according to sample. Something 
had been said about the branding of meat; and although the Government 
might be able to brand boxes of butter with advantage, he did not see how they 
could do so with meat, It was discussed in London, and the question was 
inquired into by a Royal Commission; and from all he could learn there was 
no feasible scheme by a which a man could put a brand upon a sheep 
carcass that would be of the slightest use. If it was done, the sheep 
would have to be branded all over, for the reason that it was all 
cut up into a dozen different parts before going into consumption, In 
any event, meat was sold entirely on its merits. Wool was the same way. The 
Government did not interfere with the branding of wool, the growers sending 
home the wool with their own brands on. If a man had the right sort of cattle 
his brand on the meat would soon become known, and buyers would ask for 
such-and-such a brand. As for butter, and extract of meat also, they were in 
London entirely sold by their flavour. The buyers in London were very keen, 
and he would have to be a smart man who could take his place among the smart 
men of London. They had the best men there at every game. As he had said 
before, a Smithfield butcher bought a thing on its merits, and if Australian 
producers would take his (Mr. Thomson’s) advice they would only send home 
the very best quality, and grade it at that. (Applause.) 
The gathering then broke up, and returned to town. 
The majority of the delegates left for their respective homes on Monda 
afternoon, the 16th May, many of them having spent the interval between that 
day and Saturday in visiting Mount M organ, Gracemere, the Gindie Experiment 
Farm, and other places of interest in the district. 
