16 AGRICITLTURE AND TARIFF REFORM. 



Dairy Produce, Etc. 

 If Ave are asked, " What about our home dairy 

 produce?" we reply that here, too, prices have 

 enormously fallen. Sir Eobert Giiieu, in his 

 evidence before the Royal Commission on Agri- 

 culture, showed that the changes between 1874 

 and 1891 in the prices of milk, butter, and 

 cheese, as a whole, amounted to a fall of 33 per 

 cent., whilst other witnesses before the Com- 

 mission estimated the reduction at from 25 to 

 30 per cent. There has been a very considerable 

 fall since that period. With regard to milk, in 

 districts within easy access of a large toT\m, the 

 reduction in price has been, according to the 

 Commission, and as one would certainly expect, 

 less marked than in the more remote country 

 districts, where the article has to be sold in the 

 manufactured form of butter and cheese in com- 

 petition with similar products imported from 

 abroad. Butter, unless of the highest quality, 

 for which there is but a limited demand at the 

 price of a high-quality article, has decreased 

 from 15 to 20 per cent, in price, whilst as to 

 cheese, this has fallen from 25 to 30 per cent. 

 Moreover, it is the general opinion amongst those 

 best qualified to know, that the price of potatoes 

 has decreased quite 20 per cent, in the last thirty 

 years or so, whilst everyone is aware that hops, 

 a very precarious crop, do not realise anything 

 like the figures of years ago. 



We agree with the Eoyal Commission referred 

 to, which was composed of members of both 



