122 REPORT— 1866. 



fourteen millions. The same" may be said of Austria. In many of the German 

 States the proportion is higher still. In Deniuark the cattle are not very much 

 less numerous than the popidauou. In the United States there is rather more than 

 one head to every two of population. 



With pigs, as I have stated, Great Britain is very scantily provided. In France 

 and Prussia the pigs are one to seven ; in Austria one to four and a half. Taking 

 the whole of Europe the proportion is one to six. In the United States there are 

 more pigs than population. 



Had the returns supplied us with information as to poidtry, the deficiency would 

 have been still more striking. In the year 1865 this countrj^ imported more than 

 400 millions of eggs, if the hundred of eggs be taken, as it has been from the 

 earliest time, at 120. 



I need hardly inform my hearers of the fundamental canon of prices — that when 

 the supply of any neccssarj' of life falls short of the demand, the price rises in a 

 proportion which I may perhaps venture on calling geometrical ; that is, the quan- 

 tity available for sale is worth more, increasing according to the deficiency, than 

 the noimal or natural supply would be. The statistics of the cattle retiu'us supply 

 the key towards interpreting the high price of meat ; aud we may be sure that the 

 price would be higher than it actually is, were it not for those improvements in 

 stock-keeping by which cattle become more available for consimiption at earlier 

 dates — improvements which are yearly developed. 



This deficiency is not gi-eatly supplemented by importation. Small as the stock 

 of cattle is, the annual importations do not amount to more than one-twentieth 

 of the ordinary stock, while that of sheep is, as a ride, but one-fiftieth. During 

 the present year even these quantities must have imdergone a serious diminution. 

 Nor is the import of meat large. The most important item is that of bacon. But 

 even here the largest estimate will not give more than the eqidvalent of 300,000 

 pigs. The beef seems to be about equal to the supply of 50,000 oxen. 



It is a matter of regret that no facts have been collected by which we might 

 compare the present and the past supply of live stock in Great Britain It is of 

 course always dangerous to trust to impressions, or to memoiy ; but I cannot but 

 be convinced that there has been a general and considerable diminution in the 

 amount of live-stock in Great Britain for some years past. It is now comparatively 

 seldom that agricultural laboiu-ers are able to keep pigs ; it is still more rare that 

 they breed poultry. The enormous importation of eggs suggests tliat the fowls 

 kept in Great Britain are comparatively scanty. But it is probable that the main- 

 tenance of insect-eating birds is an important provision in agi-icultural economy, 

 and that when we find fault with the destruction of small birds, we forget that our 

 practice is dispensiug with a still more important means for checking the ravages 

 of insects, as well as for supplying that great deficiency in live-stock which seems 

 to characterize our domestic economy. It is possible, too, that the abandonment 

 of much pasture in the northern part of the Island to deer forests and grouse moors 

 has considerably lessened stocks of lean cattle and mountain sheep. 



It is a little dangerous to offer any comment on the second important contribu- 

 tion to the statistical infonnation of the present year. Under existing circum- 

 stances we must, if we allude to the Electoral statistics, remember the caution of 

 the Roman poet : — 



" Incedis ]}er igues 

 Suppositos cineri dolose." 



It will be clear, however, that \aluable as the Blue Book is to which I am ad- 

 vertino-, and singiilar as were some of the obvious inferences from its contents, the 

 facts are imperfect and the tabulation still more so. One woidd have desired to 

 see, alono- with the figm-es declaring the value of lands and tenements as estimated 

 for income-tax, other similar charges, such as the proportion of assessed taxes, and 

 the amount of the poor rate. It would have beeu well also had the distribution 

 of the 25 per cent, of " working classes " among the several constituencies beeu 

 distinctly indicated. Thus, for instance, the persons designated bj' this name 

 amount to nearly all the constituency at Birkenhe.ad; at not much less in 

 Nottingham ; whereas at Birmingham they are taken at less than a fifth, at Brad- 

 ford considerably iwder a tenth. Is it possible that the expression ' ' working classes " 



