Ticcnly Years^ Changes in our Foreign Meat Supplies. 493 
her inhabitants result in an importation of dead meat in other 
forms to the vastly greater extent of 1,498,000/. Indeed, after 
ourselves, the Belgians take a high place in the list of dead- 
meat importers, although their purchases are but one-tenth as 
great as those of the United Kingdom. In the extra-European 
section of the account it is the United States which furnishes 
two-thirds of the provision for the older world. 
I am sure to be asked what has been the effect of all these 
imports, whether European or American, on our prices here. 
I might reply simplv by expressing my regret that no clear and 
comprehensive register of meat-prices exists in this country. 
Tliose usually quoted from the London markets are open to 
much criticism and question. Now that we have the question 
of market facilities generally referred to a Royal Commission, it 
may not be out of place to express a hope that steps will be 
taken to secure better and more general statistics of market 
transactions. But using the data we have, I offer the diagram 
printed on p. 495 for the study of those curious enough to trace 
the course of prices. Both higher and lower prices are quoted 
for each year rather than an assumed mean price, which cannot 
be an " average " as long as we are ignorant of the relative 
quantities sold in the higher or lower grades. 
It will be noticed that the Cattle Market prices of live-meat 
are " closer " now than twenty years ago, and the Dead-meat 
Market prices considerably " wider," the greatest drop being in 
tlie lower grades of the latter. This may probably be due to 
the opening of the Foreign Market in 1872, and the more recent 
importations of preserved, chilled, and frozen beef. But I show 
by the shaded columns of this diagram also the relative 
number of pounds of foreign meat, live or dead, taken by each 
head of the population in each year, and it is curious to see 
how far from uniform is the effect of importation, taken by 
itself, on price. We may have declining importations with a 
falling price, as in 1884, 1885, and 1886, or rising importa- 
tions, as in 1878, 1879, 1880, and 1883, with a price, in the 
higher grades especially, by no means declining in the same 
proportion, and even occasionally rising as the imports rise. 
The lesson which such a picture teaches is one we ought not to 
forget — that important as are our imports of meat, there are 
other and even larger factors affecting values, in the fluctuations 
of our home supply and the varying demands of consumers. 
To the farmer who has had patience enough to wade through 
the figures offered in this paper, one very important question still 
remains to be answered. Assuming that no overwhelming 
supplies of beef from Australasia or the River Plate need yet 
be looked for, and that any increasing European competition 
