PART II 



THE ECONOMICS OF LARGE AND SMALL 

 HOLDINGS AT THE PRESENT DAY 



CHAPTER IV 



THE ALTERATION IN MARKET CONDITIONS AND ITS 

 EFFECT ON PRODUCTION 



THE agricultural development of almost all European countries 

 has been very fundamentally affected by the cheapening and quick- 

 ening of transport which has taken place in the last thirty years. 

 The results to national economy might even be compared with those 

 of Vasco da Gama's discovery of the sea-route to the East Indies. 

 As that brought the goods of the East to the western peoples at 

 prices formerly impossible, so the recent improvements in navigation 

 and the extension of the railway system have brought the chief 

 necessary of life to the doors of every nation at an ever-decreasing 

 price. Through these new transport conditions virgin lands in the 

 United States, Canada, India and Russia have been brought under 

 the plough, and their products have been placed at the disposal of 

 countries whose growing populations oblige them to have resort to 

 imported corn. This supply has been offered at continually decreas- 

 ing cost, so that international corn-prices have fallen steadily; and 

 thus the importing countries need no longer be dependent on the 

 chances of the home harvest or those of one or two neighbouring 

 countries : the price in the world market regulates that in the home 

 market. Where customs duties have not prevented the close knitting 

 of the home market into the international, the price of corn, as in 

 England, has fallen much and rapidly. Taking the period 1879 to 

 1902, and disregarding the fluctuations of particular years, the fall in 



