... THE LANDED INTEREST. CHAPTER I. HOME AND FOREIGN SUPPLY OF FOOD. ONE of the most important functions of Government is to take care that there shall be no hindrance to the people supplying themselves with food and clothing, which are the first necessaries of life. And as these are, in one form or another, annual products of the earth, dependent for their abundance on the skill, capital, and labour employed in its cultivation, much of the safety and welfare of a country arises from the condition of its agriculture. That of England has attained an exceptionally high productiveness. The best of our land has long been occupied, and, though there is yet much of the inferior class that admits of improvement, it has become B Value of cereal and animal food imported from abroad. our interest as a nation to look also for further supplies from the broader and richer lands of other countries, which, to their advantage and ours, the beneficent principle of Free Trade has placed within our reach. The progressive increase of foreign supplies during the past twenty years is marvellous, the value of foreign cereal and animal food imported having risen from £25,900,000 in 1858 to £100,775,000 in 1879. The greatest proportional increase has been in the importation of animal food living animals, fresh and salted meat, fish, poultry, eggs, butter, and cheese, which in that period has risen from an annual value of five and a half to thirty-seven millions sterling. More than half the farinaceous articles imported, other than wheat, are used in the production of beer and spirits. The imports of animal food during the first fourteen years of Free Trade were comparatively small, the difference of price here and in foreign countries not then affording a margin sufficiently encouraging to justify costly arrangements of transit. But as the price of meat in this country moved steadily up, rising in a few years from Rapid rise fivepence to sevenpence, ninepence, and even a shilling a pound, enterprise with skill and capital were called into rapid action to meet the growing demand. It became clear that an article so valuable could cover the cost of carriage for much longer distances than corn, a poundweight of meat being many times more valuable than a pound of corn. All kinds of salted meat were expected, and came; but fresh meat (except as live animals), from its perishable nature, was not anticipated in any considerable quantity. The cost of transporting live animals from any great distance must obviously present a very great difficulty. And a further and most serious objection arose, in regard to those from nearer European ports, in the risk of such live animals bringing with them across the seas the contagion of cattle-plague, or other pests, dangerous to the live-stock of this country. All this could be avoided by the importation of fresh meat, and a plan with this object, recently adopted by American shippers, has been attended with large measure of success. in value of meat, the compara tively high price of which pays for long transport. Fresh mea from America may pre vent exces sive rise of a price in Europe The steam-ships in which the meat is carried have chambers fitted in such a manner that the meat can be kept fresh during the voyage by currents of cooled air. From Australia and South America the same trade has made a successful beginning, a new French cooling process, by which the temperature of the air can be reduced twenty degrees below zero (freezing without the use of ice), having been introduced. Large shipments have thus been successfully made, and most of them have arrived in good condition. Should this plan, in addition to the growing importation of live animals, prove safe and successful, we shall have the vast prairies of America, North and South, and the rich grazings of Australia added to our own pastures as new sources of supply. This will be a great benefit to the consumers of meat in this country, but probably more by preventing a further rapid rise in the price of meat than by effecting a heavy reduction upon it. For the English market will take only the best quality. Under any circumstances the English producer has the advantage of about a penny a pound in the cost and risk of transport against his Transatlantic and Australian |