54 THE FRUIT INDUSTRY 



they send there in the interests of the ordinary con- 

 sumers. 



The only person who, at first sight, appears likely to 

 suffer is the foreign producer; but he is finding com- 

 pensation in those cheaper prices of sugar which have 

 led to a substantial increase in the number of jam 

 factories on the Continent, and to a consequent de- 

 crease in the need for ' dumping ' surplus supplies on to 

 the shores of a country which thus seeks, so far as it 

 can, to meet its own requirements. Nor, it would 

 seem, is there much fear that the foreigner will attempt 

 to compete with the Britisher in the matter of jam. 

 Some years ago certain Dutch firms made a strong 

 effort to capture the British market for jam ; but the 

 commodity they sent over was so much inferior to the 

 British article that the latter had no difficulty in main- 

 taining a supremacy that especially with the use of 

 the best and freshest of British fruit nothing is now 

 likely to disturb. 



These various developments in the jam-making in- 

 dustry have combined with the increased direct con- 

 sumption of fruit in this country to bring about 

 important results for fruit-growers, and the scope for 

 their activity and enterprise is certainly greater to-day 

 than it has ever been before. 



But, although this praiseworthy policy of the British 

 jam-makers, seconded by the action of the home fruit- 

 growers in catering for their wants, may reduce the 

 chances of the foreigner on our markets as regards fruit 

 specially adapted for jam-making, there would seem to 

 be still greater call for their activity and enterprise in 

 regard to other classes of fruit. At a conference on 

 fruit-growing held in London in October, 1905, Sir 

 Trevor Lawrence, who presided, pointed to the fact 

 that in 1904 there was imported into this country fruit 



