Consumption of Food Products. 



29; 



white bread and tea. Frequent references to this movement 

 will be found in the Reports of the Assistant-Commissioners 

 to the Royal Commission on Labour, and the evidence collected 

 by these authorities is supported by the fact already mentioned 

 that the average supplies of wheat per head have not only 

 been maintained, but have tended to increase. It may also 

 be observed that the statistics of the quantities of tea retained 

 for home consumption in the United Kingdom have for 

 many years shown a steady growth. The quantity retained 

 annually for home consumption in the United Kingdom 

 now yields an allowance of j>£ lbs. for each inhabitant, as 

 compared with lbs. twenty years ago. In the same 

 interval there has been a large augmentation in the annual 

 supplies of sugar, which now represent a ration of 85 lbs. 

 per head. Another product showing a decline is rice, 

 and although it has never been a prominent article of 

 diet in this country, a marked diminution in the demand 

 for that article is worthy of notice. The quantity retained 

 for consumption annually has fallen in twenty years from 

 about 11 lbs. to 7 lbs. per head of the population, the 

 reduction in the supplies having apparently begun about 

 twelve years ago. 



Among other food products which have to be considered, 

 cheese, butter, and milk are, perhaps, the more important. 

 As regards manufactured dairy produce, estimates have been 

 made by various authorities of the extent to which the pro- 

 duction of butter and cheese is caried on in this country, but 

 these are necessarily of a conjectural character. There 

 is, however, less difficulty in estimating the home pro- 

 duction of milk, and it is possible to ascertain with 

 tolerable accuracy the quantity of milk imported in the 

 form of butter and cheese, so that in this way a rough calcu- 

 lation can be made of the volume of milk consumed 

 annually in all forms. The large importation of margarine 

 must also be taken into account, and for the purposes of this 

 paper a given weight of that article has been regarded as 

 equivalent to a similar weight of butter. In an article pub- 

 lished in the June number of this Journal it was assumed that 

 the yield of milk from an average home-bred cow amounted 



