70 SIBERIA 



suasion, though he, too, may have forgotten the taste 

 of the quality he is talking about, the importer may 

 be inveigled into accepting the price ofifered ; the 

 price gets knovi^n among his brother importers, the 

 market is broken, and more money is lost than there 

 is any real reason for. All of which goes to show 

 that there are ups and downs in the butter trade as 

 in all others. 



'Notwithstanding these drawbacks, however, the 

 firms engaged in importing butter into this country, 

 like a certain character in one of Dickens's novels, 

 are profoundly confident that, sooner or later, some- 

 thing is bound to " turn up," to recoup them for their 

 losses and to justify their courage and enterprise. 

 In the meantime they have some consolation in the 

 knowledge that, after all, "it is the quantity that 

 pays," as one far-seeing member of the butter trade 

 remarked some time ago. 



In the matter of large imports the British merchant 

 is an easy first. There is a gentleman who has 

 realised a fortune in the provision trade and is now 

 spending a large portion of it in the attertipt to 

 carry away the Cup from the American Yacht Club, 

 a feat which it is to be hoped he may accomplish 

 ere long. The Siberian butter trade appears to me 

 to be a somewhat similar hobby to international yacht 

 racing. Perhaps it had its origin in a humane feel- 

 ing of pity for the ill-used and neglected Siberian 

 peasant, who, having been exiled to Siberia, is now 

 being persuaded to accept more for his butter than 

 can be realised for it on the London market. 



Some British merchants are in favour of what is 

 known as the " consignment " method of doing busi- 

 ness, which consists in the importer advancing from 

 three-quarters to seven -eighths of the value of the 

 goods — after careful inquiries as to the solvency and 

 commercial standing of the shipper— and remitting 



