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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.