T'he Puture of Agrkuttaral Competition^ 
In 1890 there was a drop to ol. 4^. Gel. No doubt this price foi* 
butter only, compai-ed with as much or more for butter and mar- 
garine in earlier years, shows a considerable fall ; but it does 
not explain the increase in our imports up to 1884. If we take 
the records of prices of Irish butter, we find that top prices were 
never as high for any other series of years as they were from 
1880 to 1884, or, indeed, from 1879 to 1885. Bottom prices 
were lower than they had been as a rule for some years before 
1879 ; but the averages remained high. Since 1885, however, 
there has been a considerable fall, with fluctuations in different 
years, the average for 1890 being the lowest, as far as the record 
goes. For 189 1, it is to be feared, the average will be lower still. 
It is well known that spring and summer prices in 
England have been very low for some years past ; bat the point 
now under consideration is that we allowed foreigners to get a 
good hold upon our markets at a time when butter sold remark- 
ably well. The truth is that our dairy industry had been 
scandalously neglected for many years before the recent revival 
in it set in. Since then improvement has been rapid, and, with 
dairy schools established, or about to be established, in every 
county, it should be more rapid still in the future. If the fall 
in the average price of English butter has been greater than 
the fall in foreign butter, the fault is mainly one of an inferior 
marketing system, for the best English butter is superior to any 
that we import, and its proportion is yearly becoming greater. 
Why should fresh English butter be exti-emely cheap in the 
summer, when, at the cheapest of times, none that is fit to be 
eaten can be obtained at less than Is. 4c?. a pound in the suburbs 
of London, while for the greater part of the year the price is 
Is. 6(1. to Is. 8(1. ? We are apt to attribute to foreign competi- 
tion much that is really due to a wasteful system of distribution. 
As to the future, I see no reason why British and Irish 
butter-makers should be beaten by Continental makers, who, at 
present, are their chief competitors. The United States and 
Canada have been falling back in their supplies of butter in 
recent years, having been cut out of our markets to a great 
extent by Denmark, France, and Sweden. Among our Con- 
tinental competitors France has made no steady progress, having 
sent us more butter in 1882 than in any subsequent year, while 
Germany and Holland have contracted their supplies, though 
the last-named country has favoured us with great quantities of 
margarine. Denmark and Sweden, on the other hand, have 
made steady and great advances ; but the Danes are dissatisfied 
with the prices obtained in our markets in 1890 and 1891. As 
we raise tlie general quality of cur butter, the opening for sup- 
