THE EMPIRE'S TRADE 307 



cereals, chiefly wheat and oats, were similarly derived mainly from 

 Australasia. Since 1912 it appears that the live-stock industries 

 of the Union have made such progress as to be nearly equal to 

 supplying the home consumption of animal foodstuffs on the 

 balance ; and there may in the future be a considerable growth in 

 the exports of meat which have recently begun to be appreciable. 

 Should South Africa thus become a surplus rather than a deficiency 

 area in animal foodstuffs in the future, the supplies of these articles 

 of Imperial origin available for meeting the deficiency in the United 

 Kingdom should be increased correspondingly. 



There is no doubt that for some time to come the numbers of 

 live-stock on the Continent of Europe will be considerably below 

 the normal pre-war levels, and the tariffs hitherto imposed by 

 certain continental countries upon imported meat may be modified, 

 temporarily, at any rate, in order to attract supplies in larger 

 quantities into these countries. It is quite possible that France 

 and Italy, for example, may become for a time extensive importers 

 of frozen and chilled meat. In view of the expansion in meat 

 production in temperate South America, these supplies might 

 conveniently be derived thence, but they may come partly also 

 from the British Dominions for two reasons : the countries of 

 Central Europe may compete vigorously for a shaie of the South 

 American exports, more especially because the surplus supplies 

 from Holland, Denmark and Sweden will be seriously restricted 

 for some time to come ; and Canada, South Africa and Australia 

 all produce certain quantities of lower grade beef which may find 

 a better market on the Continent than in the United Kingdom, 

 while the latter may at the same time be importing large supplies 

 of better-class beef from Argentina. 



The problem of return cargoes constitutes the chief difficulty 

 in the way of the consignment of the whole of the surplus production 

 of the overseas parts of the Empire to the United Kingdom, where 

 the great deficiency occurs. The exports of the United Kingdom 

 consist mainly of the comparatively less bulky manufactured goods, 

 the raw materials for which have themselves to be largely imported. 

 The most striking exception to this rule is coal, the exports of 

 which may be more limited in the future, and which cannot in any 

 case be carried outwards in the ships that are employed in trans- 

 porting animal foodstuffs homewards. On the great cargo-liner 

 routes between the United Kingdom and the Dominions, there 

 exists, therefore, a constant shortage of return freight for ships on 

 their outward voyages. 1 Frozen meat is a somewhat bulky cargo 

 material compared with general merchandise, and chilled meat 

 is yet more so. This shortage of return cargo would be still UK un- 

 marked if a greater proportion of the defi< ieney of animal foodstuffs 

 were supplied from Empire sources under the present conditions, 

 since the most productive of these sources are separated from the 



1 For a clear and detailed account of this subject, see Sargent, Seaways of 

 the Empire, 1918. 



