410 FOREIGN COMPETITION 



change. The farmers who saw the signs of the time and took 

 advantage of them were made prosperous by the transition. The 

 immediate effect of cheap bread and meat from abroad was to 

 benefit the cities and the laboring classes in the industries in 

 the cities. The prosperity of the working classes brought a 

 demand from them for foods in addition to bread and meats, 

 particularly articles of food which before had been looked on as 

 luxuries. These food articles included milk, cream, butter, vege- 

 tables, fruit, jams, preserves, poultry, eggs, etc. Thus the pros- 

 perity of the cities was in part passed on to the farmers. Certain 

 high-grade meats produced in England and Scotland were in greater 

 demand. There followed as a natural consequence of agricultural 

 revolution a great expansion in the growing of pure-bred live stock, 

 particularly dairy cattle. There came also a growth in raising 

 pure-bred beef cattle, partly to supply the home demand for prime 

 beef, and partly for export purposes to countries like Argentina, 

 where fancy prices were paid for pure-bred sires. 



British farmers of the more progressive type recognized the 

 changes in the world about them, and hastened to take advantage 

 of them. Among the successful activities of the progressive farmers 

 may be named the following: sale of fresh milk, fruit industry 

 (including dried fruit, jam, preserved fruits, cider), flowers, bulbs, 

 market gardening (including broccoli, cabbage, celery, peas, rhu- 

 barb), eggs and poultry. Marketing and transportation problems 

 also received considerable attention, in order that a proper and 

 wide distribution of these crops could be secured. 



The non-progressive farmers, feeling the pinch of the transition, 

 filled the newspapers with letters about the " depression in agri- 

 culture," and wanted the government to "do something" for the 

 farmer. Many of them asked for a protective tariff against this 

 "foreign competition." In short, the issue was the old familiar 

 one of Self-help versus State-aid. But self-help prevailed as the 

 policy to be pursued. And now the British farmer himself is glad 

 to buy his wheat from abroad, paying for it with crops that yield 

 him a higher net return. In other words, he can get a bushel of 

 wheat from the prairies of western Canada with less labor than 

 he can produce a bushel of wheat on his British soil. Consequently 

 wheat-growing in England has been reduced to those areas having 

 distinct advantages in producing this cereal. 



