Now, it is very plain that meat cannot be carried for a month or six weeks on a steamship without preparation. The preparation is very simple; the meat, after dressing, is frozen and it is kept frozen until it reaches the people who eat it. There are refrigerating-rooms at the slaughter-houses, refrigerator cars to the nearest port, and refrigerator ships to London.
Wool is also one of the important products of New Zealand, but it has a much coarser and harsher fibre than the fine merino wool of Australia. As a rule, sheep that are grown for their wool feed on grass; those that are for mutton get their final feeding on turnips; and all England has said that turnip-fed mutton is good.
Christchurch, a city of about seventy thousand people, is one of the great centres of the wool and mutton industry. The city is there because the great Canterbury Plain is one of the finest grazing regions in the world. Christchurch is not very old—it was made a city in 1862—but it has grown pretty vigorously. Its handsome buildings—churches, college, museum, and school-houses—are as fine as those of any city of the same size anywhere. The streets are wide and beautifully kept, and electric railways extend to half a dozen suburbs.
Out in the suburbs are the large meat-freezing establishments. In the season for export about fifteen thousand sheep are dressed and frozen daily in the great plants in and around Christchurch.
The freezing-rooms are kept at a temperature of a cold winter night. In a single plant there may be as many as ten or fifteen thousand carcasses hanging from great frames, and the walls of the rooms are covered with a thick coat of ice and frost. In three days from the time the meat is put into the freezing-room it will be ready for its long journey.
Wellington is the capital of New Zealand; it is likewise the windy port of the Pacific, for it is in the eye of the "roaring forties," the strong west wind of the South Temperate Zone. But Wellington has the harbor, and the harbor has the shipping; and because of this Wellington is a very rich and prosperous municipality.
On the whole, the New Zealanders have not much cause to envy the people of other lands. Every man and every self-supporting woman can become the owner of a homestead; and about one person in every ten has become a landholder. The government lets them have the land on very easy terms of payment. Women have the same political rights as are possessed by men. They can vote, hold public office, and hold property in their own names.
The government has established postal savings banks at which any one may deposit money; what is equally good, the money is loaned at a small rate of interest to farmers while they are waiting for their crops. What is still better, the bank never fails, leaving the depositors to whistle for their money.
The government owns and operates most of the railways, telegraph lines, and telephone system. There is good service at a low cost. The government manages and supports all public schools. Attendance is compulsory and practically everything is free from the kindergarten to the university. There are old-age pensions for deserving poor people of good character; there are likewise prisons for those of criminal character—and the two are pretty apt to get together. "Bad" trusts and monopolies have not got the upper hand anywhere in New Zealand and the government sees to it that they do not. Great Britain appoints a governor of the colony, but the people elect a legislative council and a house of representatives.
New Zealand has also something more than productive lands; the colony has plenty of coal fields, gold-mines, silver-mines, iron ore, and copper ore. Even if all the rest of the world were closed against this far-away colony, the New Zealanders could worry along quite well, for they easily rank among the most prosperous and well-governed people in the world.