24 PRODUCTION 



than any other country. Even countries such as Denmark and 

 Holland, that apparently have a large surplus of meat and dairy 

 products for export, are themselves importers of lower-grade meat 

 and dairy products, and to a remarkable extent of animal feedstufis 

 and fertilisers, and of cereals and vegetable oils for direct or indirect 

 human consumption. It is these imports that make the exports 

 of higher-grade animal-food specialities possible. Thus in the year 

 1912 1 the Danish imports of agricultural produce (live animals 

 other than horses, animal food products, cereals, and feedstuffs) 

 were valued at 12J millions, while the exports of the same were 



25 millions ; for Holland, in the same year, the imports of the same 

 kinds of agricultural pioduce were valued at 54 millions and exports 

 at 38 millions. The net imports of wheat and rye, in 1912, into 

 Denmark, had a value of 2J millions, and those of the same into 

 Holland a value of 11-3 millions. From this it is logical to infer 

 that both these countries import food cereals (which they cannot grow 

 so cheaply themselves) in order to set free more of their agricultural 

 resources for the production of meat and dairy produce, for which 

 they are in several ways singularly adapted. The same observation 

 holds with perhaps even greater force of the gieat quantities of 

 animal feedstuffs in the fonn of oats, barley, maize, linseed, oilcake 

 and meals which these countries import in excess of exports of the 

 same articles. 



In point of fact, these latter are the " raw material " out of which 

 the people of Denmark and Holland manufacture their high-grade 

 meat and dairy products, just as imports of iron ore and pig iron 

 by the Clyde district, for example, are used to supplement local 

 supplies and reappear finally as finished ships, etc., in the export 

 trade. A further remarkable feature in the foreign trade of both 

 Denmark and Holland appears in the fact that they import lower- 

 grade animal foodstuffs, e.g., American bacon, Siberian butter, 

 etc., partly for home consumption, to replace high-grade goods of 

 the same kinds exported. 2 Since these countries have organised 

 themselves especially so as to produce high-grade animal foodstuffs 



millions, which ought, strictly speaking, to be transferred to the former total. 

 Owing partly to the absence of this correction, it appears, however, that the 

 value of the home production of animal food products bears a higher ratio to 

 that of imports of the same than does the value of the home-grown cereals to 

 that of corresponding imports. 



1 British Statistical Abstract for Foreign Countries, 1914. Only the 

 principal articles are given. The imports of fertilisers into Denmark are not 

 given. Some of the Dutch merchandise is transit goods, free of duty, 

 appearing in both import and export figures. 



3 The imports of animal foodstuffs into Denmark in 1912 were as follows 

 (expressed by values in mill.) : Live animals other than horses, -07 ; butter, 

 28 ; lard and fats, -4.S ; meat, including bacon and hams, -17 . Total. ^1-0 

 mill. Obviously the total exports require to be reduced by these amounts 

 in order to arrive at the true surplus. Some of these items may not be used 

 entirely in home consumption ; the live animals may in part be fattened 

 and re-exported later, and the butter may be used to certain extent for blend- 

 ing purposes. 



