298 



Consumption of Food Products. 



to about 400 gallons per annum. On this basis, the average 

 home production of milk in the United Kingdom represented 

 a supply of 45 gallons per head of the population in 1876-78, 

 and of just over 40 gallons in 1894-96 ; for the same periods 

 the imports of cheese, butter, and margarine represented in 

 milk 20 gallons and 35 gallons per head respectively ; the 

 supply available from all sources would therefore seem 

 to have risen from about 65 gallons to 75 gallons per 

 head. 



It would be interesting to discover what proportion of this 

 supply is made up of cheese and butter respectively, but 

 unfortunately no reliable statistics exist as to the extent to 

 which the milk produced in this country is devoted to the 

 manufacture of those articles. It appears, however, that the 

 imports of cheese have increased by about one pound 

 per head in twenty years, the annual foreign supply at 

 present being about six pounds, whereas those of butter and 

 margarine have risen in the same interval from about five 

 pounds to over eleven pounds per head. On the other hand, the 

 home production of milk has apparently declined relatively 

 to the population,* and if this is really the case the output of 

 both cheese and butter from British and Irish dairies cannot 

 have been increased without curtailing the market supply 

 of raw milk. The remarkable expansion in the imports of 

 butter and margarine is believed, however, to have led to a 

 contraction in the home manufacture of butter, and thus set 

 free a certain quantity of milk ; and allowance must also 

 be made for the growing consumption of condensed milk, the 

 net import of which was 376,000 cwts. last year. But there 

 can be little doubt that any reduction in the output of butter 

 has been more than counterbalanced by the growth of the 

 imports. As regards cheese the evidence of a change is not 

 so clear. Slightly more foreign cheese is consumed now than 

 formerly by each individual, but it has been held that the 

 demand for cheese has decreased, and if this is the case, the 



* In paragraph 269 of the Report of the Royal Commission on Agriculture, it is 

 stated that the production of milk relatively to the population must have declined, 

 unless it be assumed that there has been a material improvement in the milk-yielding 

 qualities of the cows in this country. 



