A COMMERCIAL POINT OF VIEW. 79 



would become available for the people at a price to com- 

 pete with butchers' meat. 



There is no country under the sun where obsolete 

 customs or protective prices have been so successfully 

 replaced as in England, and this against the most omi- 

 nous prognostications. Need I enumerate the long list of 

 articles, from the postage-stamp to tea? 



Up to this very day we are informed that the supply is 

 always equal to the demand, even in poultry. Has it not 

 always been so since the beginning of the world? But 

 this is not the question. What is the result of our free- 

 trade principles, our improved machinery, our improved 

 agriculture? Why, a hundred-fold consumption of these 

 very articles which were then, as now, said to be sup- 

 plied according to demand ; a participation in the com- 

 forts of this life by the poorer classes ; a steadier and 

 more remunerative employment both of capital and labor. 

 True, but there are no protective duties on poultry ; it is 

 simply a question of price between dealer and customer. 

 By appearance this looks fair enough, and the manner 

 of sale is so old and deeply-rooted that it is accepted both 

 by breeder and the public as a perfectly fair way of deal- 

 ing ; yet who would ever purchase a leg of mutton, or 

 a surloin of beef, at so much apiece? Why, the very 

 poulterer who feels insulted if any person asks him what 

 the fowl weighs would no more think-of buying a joint by 

 guess than he would of selling a fowl by weight. 



Next you will be told that poultry must always remain 

 a choice morsel for the upper classes only, as the poor 

 will never be able to afford the price ; that the production 

 is, after all, limited, and that the climate of England is 



