Tke Future of Agricultural Gompetitioifi. 
there is no doubt that our imports of beef from Australasia 
would increase enormously. 
To British breeders, it is hardty necessary to say that the 
chief danger of the near future is the opening of this country 
to American stores. A few years hence, however, the effect of 
such a change, which would be disastrous to our breeding 
industry at present, would be comparatively small, as the era of 
cheap production of store cattle in America is passing away. 
As far as live sheep are concerned, foreign competition is 
now trifling ; but supplies of frozen mutton have been growing 
greater and greater every year since they were started, and are 
growing still. Seeing that they amounted to over 1,300,000 
cwt. in 1890, the marvel is that they have not had a greater 
effect than they have had upon prices. It is true that we cannot 
tell how high prices would have been if no frozen mutton had 
been imported ; but the probability is that if they had been 
much higher than they have been in recent years, supplies of 
sheep and mutton from Europe would have grown, instead of 
declining, until a lower level of values had been brought to 
pass. The fact appears to be that European producers of mutton 
who used to send it to our markets, alive or dead, in consider- 
able quantities, have felt the competition of the frozen meat 
trade more severely than British producers have suffered from 
it, because it is low qualities of mutton which have fallen most 
in value. But, as in the case of beef, if mutton can be sent to 
us from Australasia and the River Plate in a chilled, instead of 
a frozen, state, the results will be serious to British producers. 
Apart from this consideration, there appears to be no reason to 
suppose that our imports of mutton will increase materially 
unless prices keep about up to their present level. The margin 
of profit on frozen mutton, with freights and freezing charges 
reduced to a minimum as they have been recently, is extremely 
small. For the present year, indeed, it is doubtful whether 
shippers have derived any profit, as the prices of frozen mutton 
have been very low, and agents in this country have recom- 
mended a diminution of supplies. Freights are more likely to 
rise than to fall, and other expenses have been cut down so 
severely of late that it is not easy to imagine how any further 
economy can be effected. If corn-growing becomes more profit- 
able than it has been in recent years, there will be another 
assurance against the supply of frozen mutton becoming much 
greater unless the prices of meat in this country are kept up to 
a fairly high level. 
So far as our flockmastors' interests are affected by the 
competition in wooJ, it is only necc£?ary to state that the 
