60 AN AGRICULTURAL FAGGOT. 



certainty that the figures are misleading and incorrect." 

 It is true that some attempt was made to publish the 

 prices in the newspapers, and more recently, in The Times 

 and other papers, live-weight prices have also been 

 periodically given. The latter are, so far as they go, 

 useful, but other prices were either so indefinite as to be 

 meaningless or so inaccurate as to be misleading. As a 

 rule the papers report the prices in the vaguest terms. 

 Their value was illustrated by Mr. Pell in his evidence 

 before the Royal Commission. The newspaper reports, 

 in relation to the market at Liecester, week after week 

 described the market as being " better," and stated that 

 prices had risen a halfpenny per pound ; so that, observed 

 Mr. Pell, " If those reports were worth anything, beef 

 would be standing now at something like 30s. a pound. 

 I looked at the report yesterday, and I found just the 

 same thing — that prices were about a halfpenny per 

 pound better." 



The advantage of accurate price records is two-fold : 

 market reports, if inaccurate, may mislead farmers and 

 producers in sending forward their supplies to market ; 

 again, inaccurate or incomplete market reports are mis- 

 leading to the consumer, as showing the wholesale prices 

 to be on a different level from that on which they 

 really stand, preventing fair comparison with what is 

 charged in the retail trade for commodities, and generally 

 hindering business. They would be an advantage to 

 agriculturists and statisticians and to the public generally, 

 and they would have the effect of equalising prices, and 

 perhaps preventing " gluts " by drawing supplies to the 

 markets where the quotations were high. 



These two recommendations of the Commission, viz., 

 for the better provision of facilities for weighing cattle, and 

 for the collection of live-weight prices at markets, were 

 given effect to by the Markets and Fairs (Weighing of 

 Cattle) Act of 1891. This measure provides that market 

 authorities having to erect weighbridges shall provide and 



