THE DAIRY INDUSTRY 67 



first appearance of the Siberian product on our 

 market, and it is abundantly evident that, within 

 the next four or five years, a further reduction is 

 bound to take place, when the British working-man 

 will be able to buy good, wholesome butter at 8d. 

 per lb. Money has already been lost in Siberian 

 butter, owing to the fierce competition of Danish 

 and German firms, in consequence of which the 

 purchasing prices of the commodity were raised until 

 no margin of profit was left to any one but the 

 Siberian producer. It is probable, too, that fortunes 

 will be lost in consequence of the downward tendency 

 of the prices during the next four or five years, unless, 

 indeed, the present war has the effect of taking 

 away a large number of dairy hands and conse- 

 quently reducing the quantity of butter produced, 

 or unless a repetition of the German drought takes 

 place. When I returned from my expedition last 

 year it was clear to me that the imports of Siberian 

 butter into Great Britain would be much greater in 

 1904 than they had been the year before, and for 

 the first time I gave the figures of some of the 

 previous years in a paper in which the butter trade 

 is interested ; but, owing to the war, the demand 

 upon the dairy hands interfered with the natural 

 increase and turned it into a decrease. 



The following figures show the advance that has 

 been made in this new Siberian industry since the 

 opening of the railway : 



