CO-OPERATIVE FREEZING WORKS.

Gisborne Times, Volume IX, Issue 709, 3 January 1903, Page 4

CO-OPERATIVE FREEZING WORKS.

The following remarkable loiter (slightly toned down) appears in the Ilawke s Hay Herald : Sir, - I see that some of the wealthiest Hawke's Buy sheepfavmc-rs are not content with the fortunes they have made but intend to form a Co-operative breezing Company with the liew oi squeezing a bit more cut oi the two freezing companies, whose enterprise and endurance have helped to swell their incomes. It is a .significant fact that at the time the two freezing companies were formed, very few.

if any, of these gentlemen eaied to risk a copper in assisting to start them, amhougn they have never censed groaning whenever they heard of tho freezing companies paying a dividend to tho shareholders who risked*their capital in these concerns. As a matter oi fact, the shareholders of the unfortunate companies have received a most inadequate return on thoir investments. In the caso of one of the companies, the shareholders have received a return of 21 per cent per annum on thencapital, while duting the fourteen years it has existed money has been ruling at from 8 to 5 per cent on first-class security, as tuany of the shareholders know to. their c- st. The other company had to write oil TIIiO.OOO, so you must see, sir, the farmers have scored heavily all these years. The success of the Canterbury and Wellington companies has been entirely uuo to the loyal support- given bv the farmers there iu fattening sheep for them all tho yearround. Now, I would like to know how many s'- eep were fattened last winter, or, for the matter of that, any winter, by the promoters of tho new concern'? It is much easier to sell lines and let others do the fattening, and then growl at the freezing companies for not giving Canterbury prices for haif finished stuff. I allow that from 20 - to 25 per cent of the Ilawke’s Bay 1 freezers are equal to Canterbury, but what about tho remaining 75 per cent that the freezing companies have to do their best with ? 1 Mr It. H. 1). ltl’Lcan states that he was over the Gisborne works and they had 1 been tho direct means of raising tno prices of stock 15 to 20 per cent. It- is very • questionable if they were tho direct cause. ' What about tho great rise in the London : market which took place about tho time ! they started. Then he says they came out *■ with a substantial balance, but for how 1 long? For five months’ continuous work ’ only. Is this a fair comparison ? Wo are not reminded, however, of the disastrous ' results to those who started tho Gisborne _ Freezing Company, and of how the original promoter, who risked all his capital in the concern, fared after twenty j years of hard work. , Some of the promoters of the new cooperative freezing works have ictuaily stated that one or other of the present i companies was bound to go to the wall , (they did not care which) whenever the »*.w’ concern was started. This is a de- • , . . ! -r. in which to start an enterligattm spi. -m.« 0 i the promoters, prise, and is well wou..„ A„i o n nd I As you aro aware, sir, >ny PCw . . have been sheepfarmers in Hawke s ay ! for over forty years, and in the earlier . days we were self-dependent and did not • rely on co-operation. -Yet we old hands did fairly well, and so did others, as wo , believed in the policy of live and let live. . Merchants and others did well out oi us. , Afe the same time we did well out or them, as we could always reckon on their hearty ■ support to see us through difficulties, and 1 many a now wealthy runholder lias to - thank the man of business for his present position. „ ’ Before things go too far, and as one who > has a big stake in a sheep run, I would • ask my fellow-farmer to remember that 1 others have got to livo besides them, and after all the old rule of live and let live is not a bad one. —I am, etc., A Sheepearjirr Of Forty Years' Stanluxo.