RUSSIAN ENTERPRISE.

Gisborne Times, Volume VI, Issue 160, 18 July 1901, Page 4

RUSSIAN ENTERPRISE.

Russia scorns to lie waking up at last to the splendid industrial resources of her empire, and has recently administered a shock to the snail-like perception of the British farmer. For an Englishman to lind butter made not in Germany but in Siberia itself upon his breakfast table surely argues “ something rotten in the State of Denmark.” Nevertheless he has to face the unpleasant fact that last year nearly £1,000,000 worth of Russian butter was imported into England direct from Siberia and North Russia, exclusive of the unknown quantity imported indirectly in the guise of Danish butter. Nor must it be thought that this was duo to a casual venture on the part of enterprising business men. It is the first year’s output of a great national business carefully planned and subsidised by the Russian Government, which has omitted no detail that could add to the success of the enterprise. Dairy experts from Denmark—the homo of the dairy industry—have been introduced for the purpose of instructing the Russian farmers, and otlicial encouragement as well as national funds have fostered the trade in every possible way. In order to facilitate the transport of the butter from the interior to the coast, special trains with refrigerator cars have been built for the Siberian railway, and a new private lino of steamers, carefully adapted to the requirements of the trade, has been started to run to .London from Riga and the Baltic ports. For the British farmer the outlook is a serious one. lie has already had to accept Danish butter, which took possession of the market so gradually that ho failed to realise the situation before it was too late. Now he has a second powerful rival in Russia, and it remains to be seen whether he will bestir himself so far as to recover his hold upon his own markets.