Land Problems and National Welfare 



to trade, because they make trade unprofitable 

 for the growers. How long shall they block the 

 way ? Buyers are driven away by bad deliveries, 

 and sellers by bad prices. They discourage 

 English growers, and encourage the sale of 

 foreign fruit and vegetables in large lots, to the 

 immense detriment of home-grown produce. 

 Thus, being wholesale and glutted with cheap 

 foreign produce in busy times they are no use 

 to the small holder. The home counties are 

 computed to lose ^100,000 per annum in these 

 bad markets. They send up their best produce 

 under the delusion that they are dealing with 

 the merchant princes of the best market in the 

 world, whereas in reality they are only supplying 

 the lowly costermongers with job lots at half 

 price. Covent Garden market, especially, mono- 

 polises the most valuable market site in London, 

 because of its proximity to the West End, but 

 it is meanly managed, cribbed, cabined and 

 confined. Outside the market, in the dirty 

 narrow streets, waggon loads of choice produce 

 wait for hours and lose their market. Hundreds 

 of empty carts bar the drivers' way to the sales- 

 men's stands, and the drivers fiercely contest 

 every inch of room. The writer himself has gone 

 through this experience, from 4.30 to 7.30 a.m. 



" After urgent remonstrances he has had to 

 wait on the top of the waggon and then see his 

 precious peas divided amongst the costermongers 



230 



