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all competition, will command slightly better prices. 

 The merchant and peasant of Siberia will then be 

 able to place their business on a firmer basis, the 

 peasant labour will be better paid, both in European 

 Russia and in Siberia, and the remuneration for agri- 

 cultural labour throughout the world will be reduced 

 to a cototnon level. The increased supply of foreign 

 agricultural products, however, cannot seriously affect 

 the hoirfe industry, provided British farmers are 

 willing to adopt up-to-date and scientific methods. 

 The British farmer has always a ready market for 

 his imilk, for which he can usually realise a good 

 price, while, if we except the artificial product, he has 

 no foreign competition to fear. Again, in the case 

 of butter, if he is able to produce the best quality in 

 sufficient quantities, the difference in the retail price 

 is so great that it will always be able to compete 

 with the im'ported article, while the British public is 

 at all timfes prepared to pay more for the home-made 

 article than for a foreign substitute. In the present 

 state of the market, as much as 2d., 3d., and even 

 4d. per lb. more is paid for best English butter than 

 for the foreign-made article, whereas 25 per cent, 

 to 30 per cent, more is readily paid for English eggs 

 than for those brought from' abroad. In the case of 

 articles of so exceedingly perishable a nature as eggs 

 and butter, therefore, the English farmer, and in a 

 slightly less degree his Irish colleague, from their 

 proximity to the market, are practically beyond the 

 reach of serious competition, provided the quality of 

 their produce is satisfactory. Then, if the English 

 and Irish farmer were able to make their produce 

 as good as that of Denmark, or to organise its sale on 

 as practical a basis, the extra advantage of being so 

 near to the consum'er, which enables them to place 

 the produce before them before its freshness has gone 

 off, as in the case of the foreign article after a long 

 overland and oversea journey in refrigerators, would 



