BENEFICENT IMPORTS.
The book does not deal at any length with fiscal economies ; but emphasizes, with honesty and insight, the value of imports to the market for English fruit. The point is rarely made but is vital. Because our people can buy good fruit all the year round they are eating more and more fruit. If—to give an impossible contingency—you stopped the import of AuStralian apples, Which succeed the home-grown supply, you would. limit, not increase, the consumption of home-grown apples. The view is not given as mine, but as the view of Mr. W. P. Seabrook, fruit farmer, of Essex. At the moment our producers of soft fruit are suffering from desperately low prices, due, it is said, to the dumping of foreign fruit. The problem before economists seems to be to prevent such slumps (due largely to market manipulation) with the encouragement of imported goods of the right sort
at the right season. * * * *
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