THE NATION'S FOOD SUPPLY. 131 



dities as are directly consumed as food by man, excluding 

 alcoholic liquors (with substances such as malt, hops and 

 yeast, which are mainly or solely used in their preparation), 

 but including cocoa, coffee, tea and milk. 



To confine the subject within reasonable limits we must 

 deal with only the main groups of commodities, and ignore 

 for the most part details of separate articles. But there 

 is one commodity, at any rate, which must stand by itself. 

 It is that which represents the staff of life and is often 

 spoken of as though it were the sole food of the people. 

 The average annual expenditure on imported wheat and 

 flour during the past five years was £46,500,000, or rather 

 more than 20s. per head of the population. Fifty years 

 ago the corresponding expenditure per head was 12s. 6d. 

 In 191 1 the total cost of imported wheat and flour was 

 £44,187,000, and if to this be added the value of the 

 home crop, or at least that part of it which is made into 

 bread, the total value of the wheat supply was over 

 £55,000,000, or, deducting about £1,000,000 for exports, 

 an expenditure of £54,000,000, or say a little over £1,000, 000 

 per week. This represents a total quantity of 138,670,000 

 cwts., or about 343 lbs. per head of the population, assum- 

 ing that all imports are used as breadstuffs, but allowing 

 a deduction for seed and tail corn from the home crop. 

 The supplies come mainly from seven sources outside the 

 United Kingdom, and the quantity and proportion from 

 each are summarised in the table on p. 132. I have added 

 to the figures for last year the average figures for the five 

 years 1907-11. 



The variations in the sources of wheat supply from year 

 to year are often considerable, and it is, therefore, in- 

 advisable to draw conclusions from one year's figures. 

 India is perhaps the most uncertain, and the supply from 

 thence, which amounted to over 20,000,000 cwts. last 

 year, was in 1908 less than 3,000,000. From Russia, 

 which sent 18,000,000 cwts. last year and nearly 29,000,000 

 cwts. in the previous year, we received in 1908 only 



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