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The above references to the canned meat trade have been 
introduced because they arise naturally out of the early attempts 
to make meat an article of international commerce, and although 
they did not succeed in this full object, canned meats became, 
and have since remained, an important supplementary foodstuff 
in this country and among Europeans in the tropics. In times 
of war, the convenience with which canned meats can be 
transported is an important factor, and in every campaign since 
1870 they have been in great demand. In the late war, the 
supplies were colossal; at the close, vast stocks were lying in 
this country and in every theatre of war. Moreover, it neces- 
sarily took some time for the canning. works to reduce their rate 
of output, so that, in 1919, the supplies of canned meats avail- 
able were much in excess of potential peace requirements. As, 
at the same time, there were huge accumulations of frozen beef 
and of bacon, a very severe slump befell this commodity from 
which it took three or four years to recover. 
Between the years 1860 and 1880, many attempts were made 
to carry meat from the southern hemisphere. The history of 
these attempts has already been written.* It is sufficient to 
say here that it was in 1878, four years after the first consign- 
ment arrived from the United States, that frozen meat was first 
successfully brought from South America, and that it was not 
until the end of 1879 that a shipment was made from Sydney. 
In both these cases, the meat was frozen in chambers which 
had been specially fitted for the purpose, and not in freezing 
works on shore as at present. Between 1880 and 1890, both 
Australia and New Zealand, profiting by the early experiments, 
were able to build up a successful frozen-meat industry. 
The early history of the Argentine industry is similar to that 
of Australia and New Zealand except that, in the Argentine, 
the frozen-meat industry had to compete with two others— 
that of salt beef and of shipment on the hoof. It was not until 
the middle nineties that the trade in frozen meat became really 
regular and its progress rapid. In 1900, owing to an outbreak 
of foot-and-mouth disease in the Argentine, British ports were 
closed to cattle and sheep, and this stopped the trade on the 
hoof until 1903 when the embargo was removed, only to be 
reimposed after six months. The period of the first embargo 
coincided with the South African War; there were also labour 
troubles in Chicago and a drought in Australia, so that the call 
for Argentine frozen beef was very great. This gave the freezing 
companies an opportunity to consolidate their position, for the 
embargo on the export of live cattle increased the supply of 
cattle and sheep on offer to the freezing works at a time when 
the demand for frozen meat itself began suddenly to expand. 
® See ¢“ History of the Frozen Meat Trade,” by Critchell and Raymond.