844 



REPORT 1884. 



varied much. The home produce of 1868 was 221,000 tons, equal to a little over 

 16 lh. per head of the people ; it rose as high as 290,000 or 20A lb. in 1872. In 

 1880 it sank to 199,000 tons, or less than 13 lb. per head, and for 1883 it may be 

 taken at 277,000 tons or 17i lb. per head. A great increase has taken place, 

 however, in the foreign supplies of bacon, ham, and pork. There seems to have 

 been but 39,450 tons received in 1868 as against 202,900 last year, and even that 

 was by no means up to the figures of 1878-81, when from 234,000 to 287,000 tons 

 were imported, the year 1880 being remarkable for the consumption of over 18J lb. 

 of foreign pig-meat against under 13 lb. of British and Irish growth. It is quite 

 clear that, placing the home and foreign supply together, much more pig-meat is 

 used by the population than formerly, the 19 lb. per head consumed in 1868 being 

 now over 30 lb. ; and the foreign portion, which sixteen years ago was less than 

 3 lb. per person, has become virtually 13 lb. per person. 



Looking at the total supplies of all classes of meat, therefore, the aggregate is 

 greater than in 1868 by something like 29 per cent., or 400,000 tons of meat. This 

 is a larger increase than can be caused by the growth of population, for which 

 217,000 additional tons would have sufficed; more meat we may safely conclude, 

 therefore, is being eaten than was the case in 1868, and this agrees with our every- 

 day experience. But it is almost wholly an increase met by importation, not by 

 home production, as the table I subjoin very clearly shows. 



The head rate of consumption, which apparently stood at a little over 100 lb. 

 per head at the beginning of the period, has risen to upwards of 111 lb. now, but 

 whereas the British or Irish farmer supplied over 93 lb. out of the average indi- 

 vidual consumption of 100 lb., he now furnishes little over 82 lb. out of 111 lb. 

 "We rely on the colonist or the foreigner for 29-4 lb. per head now, whereas sixteen 

 years ago we had to purchase from him 7-3 lb. only. These are great changes. 

 The foreign supply has not only filled up the deficiencies of our produce so far as 

 beef and mutton, taken collectively, is concerned, so that the head rate of con- 

 sumption of these commodities remains almost exactly as it was before, at some- 

 what over 81 lb. per person, but it has further enabled us to indulge more liberally 

 in the various forms of pig-meat by raising the head rate in this respect from 19 lb. 

 to over 30 lb. per person. 



It is not without interest to contrast the two forms in which these foreign 

 supplies have reached us. In the earlier years of the sixteen more than half of 

 our foreign supply reached us alive. Now, vastly as the live importations have 

 increased, that of dead meat has much more rapidly developed. All the live 



