BRITAIN’S FOOD SUPPLY.

Gisborne Times, Volume XXVI, Issue 2115, 14 February 1908, Page 2

BRITAIN’S FOOD SUPPLY.

To-day out of every 33 loaves inside for consumption in England 27 will have been made 'from (foreign wheat. This extraordinary dependence of Britain on the 'foreigner is brought out in a series of articles that have ■recently been appearing in the London Times. It is pointed out that •the dependence would have been still greater, but for the fact that the yield per acre in England has been steadily increasing as the result of scientific manuring by the fanners. After investigating the increase in the crop yields iR‘ Home, front 30.93 bushels per acre in 1901 to 33.97 in 1907, and the yields abroad, the Times concludes that “all three cerdals, wheat, barley, and oats, will he decidedly dearer in 1908 than in 1906. while 1907 will mark a (transitional period. A kindred topic is that of England’s meat supply which has beenctifie subject of discussion by the -Westminister Gazette. Its articles 'have shown “bow the great meat firms of America first obtained absolute control of the supplies on the other side of the Atlantic, and then carried their operations and their methods to the United Kingdom. The story has been told how operations iliavc been carried on here, first in London and then in the provinces; and how an organisation has been created which is so efficient that it can fix the price of beef in every part of the country, and can reduce the local dealer to a mere commission agent instead of an independent operator.” “The most serious fact of the situation,” says the 'Westminster Gazette, “is Hie manner in which breeders and -feeders of cattle in Great Britain are being driven out of the business, for 'here wo have the phenomenon ol a growing population, and a swelling demand for meat, side by side with a diminished home production. More remarkable still is the fact that this is going on at a time when, measures specially recommended for the protection of English meatgrowers are in full operation, ihe Americans have known how to turn to their own advantage the prohibition of the importation of store cattle front Canada, and the refusal .to -allow Argentine animals to be slaughtered at the port of dcbarK-a-tion. It is true that those things have been publicly recommended by the friends of agriculture, as absolutely necessary to protect English flocks and herds front foot-and-mouth disease, hut, thero has never been more than the 'thinnest disguise of the hope that these enactments would also shelter the British farmer front the competition of outside supplies, and would lead to a great increase in our •herds. The reverse has been the case, and a time seems less distant than it did, when there will be no British cattle to take foot-and-mouth disease.”