66 SIBERIA 



Britain and Germany ^ The Copenhagen market has, 

 in fact, received at times as much as 300 tons per 

 week. The same is true of Sweden amd Norway, 

 which countries, by importing the Siberian article, 

 are enabled to sell more of their own produce to 

 Great Britain. 



The bulk of the Siberian butter which reaches 

 the London market is bought direct from the dairies, 

 1,000 tons having been delivered in London in one 

 week. iWhat is more noteworthy, however, is the 

 fact that' during one week in winter between seven 

 and eight thousand casks of Siberian winter stall- 

 fed butter were placed upon the London market, an 

 article which, strange as it may appear, our Irish 

 dairies have not yet learned to make. So much for 

 the backward, ignorant peasant of Siberia. 



At the present moment Canada is the most 

 promising wheat-growing country in the world next 

 to the U.S.A., and she will continue to hold a high 

 position as a wheat-exporting country as long as the 

 carriage on cereals from iWestern Siberia is too high' 

 to allow the Russian grower to compete in the 

 Western markets ; but she is certain to drop out 

 of the butter -making business and use her milk in 

 the manufacture of cheese, unless, indeed, she is 

 assisted by an occasional opportune drought like the 

 one that occurred in Germany during the current 

 yeat. New Zealand will be obliged to follow her 

 example, more particularly in the case of the dairies 

 producing the poorer kinds of butter, and the price 

 of milk all over the world will be lowered in conse- 

 quence, a: state of affairs which cannot fail to benefit 

 the Siberian peasant, who will thus, before long, 

 be able to get as much out of his land as any other 

 farmer in the world. 



I have endeavoured to foreshadow as briefly as 

 possible the probable future of the Siberian peasant. 



