BILLINGSGATE FISH MARKET, LONDON
The Thames Side of the Market, Showing the Steam Carriers Unloading their Cargoes Direct into the Sale Room.
Liverpool, the great northern port on the Mersey, has spent $1,242,534 on six municipal markets. The only market to lose money is the cattle market, which shows a deficit of $8,000. Liverpool has a cold storage capacity for 2,176,000 carcases. On the whole municipal market enterprise, in this city of 700,000 people, there is an average annual profit of $80,000.
Manchester serves not only its own area but surrounding industrial centers, with a total population of nearly 8,000,000. There are twelve markets and four slaughterhouses. Since 1868 the city has benefited by their administration to the extent of $3,250,000 profit.
Next to that of London, the fish market here is the largest in England. Its annual profit is well over $10,000, in addition to heavy extension payments in late years.
Dublin, the capital of what is often called 'the distressful isle,' makes a profit of $14,000 on the food market and $12,000 more on the cattle market, while EDINBURGH, Scotland's chief city, makes about $15,000 a year on municipal markets.
Statistics are available of something like 150 other British towns and cities, ranging from a population of 5,000 upwards, where there is the conviction born of experience that municipal markets pay not merely in profits, but in convenience to the community, and they have a powerful influence in keeping prices down.