Now it is realized that the middleman or distributor is
as Important as either, because he is the link between the two. Ile, too, started slowly. Indeed, he has seemed at times to have nursed a definite prejudice against British produce ; but of late has advanced a long way. We can say at the end of each year that British produce is stocked in greater quantity and displayed more persuasively than it was a twelvemonth ago. We may hope that this tour of the grocers, culminating into the very attractive Royal Show at Warwick, will accelerate the beneficent movement. British producers are grading their goods better, even apart from the Ministry ; witness the success of the Cheddar and Cheshire cheese-makers. Con- stuners are discovering first that home-grown produce is best, and most wholesome, and secondly, that it can be bought in parcels, boxes, bags, tins, glass containers of convenient size and *carriage. The grocer has the comparatively easy task of keeping the willing producer and consumer in dose and effective touch. After all, the difference, say, between British tinned fruit and imported pulp is very nearly the difference between ambrosia and husks, if not between food and poison.
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