210 Growth and Beveloiyment of the Trade m Frozen Mutton. 
an exchange of a live for a dead supply ; and British agricul- 
turists, awake as they always are to the risks of contagion in- 
separable from the live sheep trade, must necessarily view the 
transfer with peculiar satisfaction. 
The events which have led to the closing of the German 
ports by the Privy Council Order of March 1 are too well-known 
to the readers of this Journal to require repetition here. But it is 
legitimate perhaps to note that the effect of stopping the German 
live sheep trade has been largely to swell the shipments of 
fresh, though not frozen, mutton from North Sea ports. Espe- 
cially, I am informed, is Antwerp now slaughtering for the 
English market. The German sheep usually directed on Ham- 
burg or Bremen, being denied the passage which until May last 
was given them through Holland, now pass through Belgian 
territory to be converted into mutton at Antwerp, and are 
thence entering our markets, favoured by the coldness of our 
spring, as a competitive supply of continental mutton. 
The extent of the movement as a disturbing factor in the 
trade, and one at variance with the usual course of imports at 
this season of the year, will perhaps be best shown by simply 
quoting two items from the weekly statements issued by the 
Customs House of the present arrivals of sheep and of fresh 
mutton respectively, and comparing them with the figures of the- 
corresponding week of 1888 : — 
Imported duriug 
week ending 
1888 
1889 
Live sheep 
Fresh mutton 
Live sheep 
Fresh mutton 
March 30 . 
April 6 . . 
April 13 . . 
Number 
16,013 
21,125 
20,75i 
cwts 
1,955 
1,264 
4,042 
Number 
2,439 
1,217 
1,066 
cwts 
25,247 
29,270 
28,806 
These three weeks' imports furnish suflBcient indication of a 
sudden and casual increase of the fresh mutton trade. The ease 
with which the change in the case of our continental neighbours 
can be made is a good argument for substituting a safe for an 
unsafe trade. 
The figures with which I have dealt in the Table on page 208 
have exhibited the chief sources of our mutton supplies in actual 
weight ; but, as will have been observed, the record in this form 
includes more than the frozen sheep. It includes certain distinct 
Continental arrivals, hitherto chiefly from or through Holland, 
and it embraces the importations which for a few years came 
from the United States. Since the Board of Trade Returns 
go' back only to 1882, I turn to the trade circulars of the 
