improbable that this trade can be maintained, provided that, in the meantime, it is 

 safeguarded against dishonourable dealing, unsatisfactory quality in the produce 

 forwarded and the practice of ineffective or inefficient business methods either here or 

 in England. 



Holding the Position. — Whatever steps, therefore, can immediately be taken 

 to ensure uniformity and high quality will be of inestimable advantage to the trade 

 later on. It may not be generally understood that the admission is freely made by 

 Great Britain that, in comparison with local conditions, the egg trade as a produce 

 business is more highly developed and more skilfully organized in Canada and the 

 United States in the methods devised to standardize grades, safeguard quality and 

 educate the consumer to the advantage of buying a first class product. If Canada 

 should be able to transfer this system and this organization to the British market in 

 the sale of our product, such would, without doubt, become of permanent and material 

 assistance to her in her competition with other countries. 



Bacon 



British Market — The situation existing with respect to the supply and sale of 

 bacon on the British market, illustrates very clearly the upheavel in trade relationships 

 caused by the war. It, however, suggests the opportunity now presented to Canada, 

 applicable not only in the case of bacon, but of many other products as well, of initiating 

 and developing a trade on practically equal terms as against the competition of other 

 nations. Countries that have been engaged in the business for years, now possess no 

 particular advantage over their younger rivals. A new trade era is being established. 

 Commercial connections and other trade assets which they formerly possessed, have 

 been largely broken down and nullified within the last eighteen months. This is one 

 of the most important and significant features to be borne in mind in any propaganda 

 that may be entered upon looking toward the extension of our business abroad. 



The Danish Supply. — Danish bacon has hitherto and even yet continues, nomin- 

 ally, to set the standard for all bacon consumed in the United Kingdom. Denmark 

 has been obliged, however, for various reasons, to very appreciably reduce her killings, 

 and the swine industry in that country has been seriously interfered with. Proximity 

 to the war and her inability to obtain American corn and Russian barley, have operated 

 to reduce the pig stock of the country. Moreover, sales to Germany, which country, 

 it is understood, is paying forty cents per pound for Danish bacon, have opened up the 

 promise of a new market and may result, temporarily at least, in a gradual discontinuance 

 of shipments to the United Kingdom. 



Notwithstanding the greatly increased value of the 1915 product, Denmark exported 

 to England considerably less than in 1914, while for the month of December 1915, the 

 value of her exports to Great Britain amounted to only £703,704 as against £912,614 

 for the similar period in 1914. The wholesale price of Danish bacon is at present one 

 hundred and five shillings per hundred weight. Although this price is twelve shillings 

 in excess of that for any other bacon offered, it is in some sense but a nominal quotation, 

 the supplies being so short as not seriously to effect the market. People who have used 

 Danish bacon for years have been obliged, owing to the short supply, to fill their weekly 

 order from supplies available from other sources. 



Increase in Imports — One other fact is noteworthy. Great Britain has 

 enormously increased her imports of bacon since 1913, the values being £17,428,881 

 in 1913 and £25,441,460 in 1915. This increased importation is attributable to two 

 causes: first, the very heavy purchases by the British War Office for army use; second, 

 the increased home consumption of meat due directly to the high wages offered and paid 

 in the most important classes of employment in the United Kingdom. It is confidently 

 expected that, even after the war, the meat consumed in Great Britain per capita will 

 considerably exceed the amount previously eaten, inasmuch as the habit of meat 

 eating, once acquired, is not easily broken. 



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