2 THE LANDED INTEREST. 



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. 

 Value of The progressive increase of foreign supplies 



cereal and 



animal during the past twenty years is marvellous, the 



food im- 

 ported value of foreign cereal and animal food imported 



from 



abroad. having risen from 25,900,000 in 1858 to 

 100,775,000 in 1879. The greatest propor- 

 tional 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 pro- 

 duction 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 



