FROZEN MEAT.
[To THE EDITOR or THE "siuccvirou.•1 SIR,—A few words on the note about frozen meat under heading, "News of the Week," in the Spectator of November tth. " Free-trade " (you assert) "is making us the bonded ware- house of the world" (my italics). As part-proprietor of a bonded warehouse, allow me to point out that " bonding" is more associated with Protection than with Free - trade. "Bonding" necessarily implies goods liable to duty in the country possessing the bonded warehouse. Free - trade, therefore, is not making us the " bonded " warehouse of the world without straining the meaning of words. Further, as one who has travelled widely in the meat-producing countries of the world, allow me to add that the conclusions you draw are not quite correct. If such meat is bought cheaper in England than in the countries of production, it simply means that, probably owing to glut, consignments have been sacrificed, and producers have thereby suffered loss which—in the case of direct orders, that is—with their eyes open, they would not consent to. Disastrous speculations such as these, far from advertising England as a meat exchange, tend the other way. Now it happens to be meat, but at other times it is fruit or dairy produce, or perhaps some other articles ; but to my knowledge it is always happening.—I am, Sir, Sx.,
Junior Carlton Club, Pall Mall, S.W. W. A. Boor. D.
[Any one may bring all food-stuffs and most other go,. h freely to England, and store them till he wants to sell thew, just as men store tobacco and spirits in a bonded warehouse. That we gain as a nation by this fact is self-evident.—En. Spectator.]
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