WITHIN THE BRITISH EMPIRE 285 



three main groups, namely, meats, dairy produce, and eggs ; and 

 also the total quantities and the percentages received from British 

 possessions in each case. The quantities have all been converted 

 to hundredweights for convenience in estimating the final totals, 

 as this method appears to be better than that of working by values. 

 The purpose of the table is not only to show the actual position in 

 1913, but also to make clear the trend of the changes in sources of 

 supply, between the beginning of the present century and the out- 

 break of the war. The original figures have been taken from the 

 Returns of Agricultural Statistics published by the Board of Agri- 

 culture, and the quantities are expressed in full, down to units of 

 hundredweights, in order to give a clear view of certain small items 

 which would otherwise have to be omitted. 



tiiiii infaate t/ie yuantik&i reraint from e/if rest of l/iempirt. ana Die urv/tadeti jectuni fAaM 

 j'ro 



A study of this table brings to light a number of interesting facts. 

 In the thirteen years covered by the table the contribution of the 

 Overseas Empire to meet the deficiency of the United Kingdom in all 

 animal foodstuffs taken together by weight, rose from 21-5% at 

 the beginning to 25-8 at the end of the period. The greatest increase 

 among the various items was in meat of all kinds, the rise in this 

 group amounting to over 6% of the total imports, as compared 

 with a similar rise of less than 4J% of all animal foodstuffs. This 

 was due mainly to an expansion in the Australian export trade in 

 refrigerated beef and mutton. There was a much smaller increase 

 in the percentage of dairy products supplied by the British posses- 

 sions, notwith standing a large increase in that of cheese and an 

 increase of about 1% in that of butter. This is accounted for by 

 the marked expansion in the imports of margarine and of condensed 

 milk, neither of v/hich was consigned to the United Kingdom in 

 any but the smallest quantities from other parts of the Empire. 

 The item of eggs calls for special remark ; not only were the sup- 

 plies from Imperial sources more or less insignificant in 1900, but 

 they declined to practically nil in 1913, owing to the disappearance 

 of the Canadian surplus consequent upon increased local consump- 

 tion. In fact, the position for the Empire was really worse in the 

 matter of egg production in relation to consumption than is shown 

 by the figures in the table above, because of the large imports of 

 eggs into Canada from the United States in 1913. 1 It is somewhat 



1 The average net annual imports of eggs into Canada in 1912-14 amounted 

 to over 12 million dozen or about 160,000 cwt. The Empire's deficiency in 



