IN RELATION TO THE WAR. 505 



profits of packing companies and checking their profiteering. The 

 meat supply has thus had the high price stimuhis to production and 

 the high price check to consumption. Excellent also, probably, was 

 the first compulsory increase of agricultural production: namely, the 

 prohibition of the sale of hens until the first of May (later amended 

 to April 20), although with the high prices of grain it has probably 

 resulted in losses to a number of poultry keepers, and they may not 

 get caught in that trap again. 



The widespread campaign conducted by many newspapers last 

 year about not killing the calf has, as above mentioned, been a 

 positive injury to the country, in so far as it has resulted in the pro- 

 duction of the least efficient of our meat producers. " Kill the bull 

 calf and buy a sow," would have been a far wiser motto. Instead 

 of urging the production of beef cattle, there should be as a war 

 measure an annual tax of $10 or $15 a year on every steer for every 

 year of his life. Pigs, sheep, and goats should be encouraged. Eat- 

 ing of horse meat should also be encouraged, and as soon as pos- 

 sible provision should be made to bring 15,000 or 20,000 fine fat 

 whales per year from Antarctica, where they have now and for 

 decades been wasted. Fortunately the experience of many nations 

 shows that we can get along nicely with half our meat consumption 

 if we have to. 



II. Food Conservation. — Real food conservation is rationing. 

 The other methods are small imitations. There has been a splendid 

 educational campaign conducted urging us to spare the wheat, the 

 meat, the fats, the sugar. To it I have willingly and gladly given 

 many days of hard labor without pay. The campaign was a neces- 

 sity, but I do not believe that so long as conserving remained on a 

 voluntary basis, it can be shown to have been accompanied by any 

 net saving of food. The intelligent, who because of that fact are 

 nearly always patriotic, have stinted themselves. The great ma- 

 jority, who are not intelligent, have, because of high war wages, 

 been able to indulge themselves. Undoubtedly if the facts were all 

 in hand, we should see the same thing here as was found in England 

 where a similar campaign and similar rise in wages was accom- 

 panied by actual increase in consumption of staple foods in the early 

 period of the war. The campaign for voluntary rationing had its 



