The Middleman in Agri&uttufB. (>1 
just be pointed out, before dismissing the subject, that, what- 
ever may happen as regards the fixing of actual rates, it 
must always be borne in mind that the Railway Rates Acts of 
1890 and 1891 have at least been of enormous benefit, if only 
as providing for the first time a simple and complete code of 
the charging powers and conditions applicable to the whole of 
the merchandise traffic of the United Kingdom. This, to those 
who remember the chaos which previously existed and the 
absolute impossibility without a long legal process of even 
discovering what powers the railway companies possessed, cannot 
but be considered as a great advantage, and as, in one direction 
at least, affording a certain amount of security to farmers. 
Setting aside, therefore, the carrying agencies, and treating 
the term “ middleman ” as applying mainly to a person who 
actually handles and obtains a profit from the handling of the 
produce, it is not reassuring to reflect to how small an extent 
the average farmer comes into direct contact with the consumer 
for any class of produce which he has to dispose of. No doubt 
the smaller occupiers, especially where they live in contiguity to 
centres of population, do to a considerable extent even now 
dispose of such products as poultry, butter, and eggs, without 
the intervention of any distributor. It is a noteworthy sight, 
in such a town, for instance, as Preston, to go on the market 
day into the market and see the rows of small farmers or their 
wives, each with a basket full of produce brought direct from 
the farm and purchased directly from them by the consumers. 
In other cases farmers occupying a considerable acreage, and 
conducting therefore a large business, have “ gone into ” the 
milk trade, and have sent out in their own carts their milk from 
house to house. But while other analogous instances might no 
doubt be found in different localities, speaking generally it is 
true to say that the average farmer does not dispose of any 
appreciable part of the produce grown on the land without the 
intervention of one or more persons as distributors. 
Perhaps the only branch of agricultural industry which is 
almost invariably conducted on the principle of direct supply 
is the trade in pedigree stock. Whether the breeder holds a 
sale on his own farm, or sends his animals to a market or fair, 
he does no doubt dispose of them practically direct to the 
persons who use them. It is true that the middleman has, 
especially of late years, crept into these transactions in the 
shape of the auctioneer, and it is a rather curious fact that in 
spite of agricultural depression farmers should have found it 
necessary to rely to so very great an extent on the auction 
system instead of upon the old plan of sale by private contract. 
