CHAPTER XVII 

 TRANSPORT QUESTIONS 



CAN the economies of which I have spoken be further 

 secured in connection with the cost of transport of 

 agricultural commodities ? 



The obvious reply to this inquiry is, ' Yes, if the 

 British producers would bulk their consignments in the 

 same way as the foreigners do.' But I wish to be 

 perfectly fair to our own agriculturists, and I think it 

 only right to point out that the general conditions in 

 this country differ somewhat from those in Continental 

 lands whence we obtain our big imports, and that any 

 comparison made is not necessarily a comparison of 

 like with like. 



Those said big imports have two essential charac- 

 teristics : (i) Collected from over a wide area, they 

 come through in trainload and shipload lots to one 

 chief centre of distribution ; and (2) they consist mainly 

 (though not exclusively) of commodities in regard to 

 which extreme ' urgency ' from the point of view of 

 maintaining their freshness is not absolutely essential. 

 Bearing these factors in mind and applying them to 

 our own normal conditions, various considerations arise. 



In the first place, any collecting area for agricultural 

 produce in this country would necessarily be much 

 smaller than is the case on the Continent, and it would 



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