PORK EXPORTS AND CORN BELT PROSPERITY 69 



rine. In the old days, Great Britain had a considerable credit 

 balance coming to her every year from the United States, and she 

 took a large part of this in the form of pork products. Now that 

 the situation is reversed, it is difficult to see how Great Britain can 

 import as much in the way of hog products from the United States 

 as she did before the war. True it is that for the year 1919 she 

 has imported about three times as much from the United States 

 as before the war, but once the present emergency is past, it seems 

 obvious that Great Britain will cut her pork imports down to the 

 minimum. 



In the case of Germany, the situation is even worse. Germany, 

 which normally took 150,000,000 pounds of lard from us every 

 year before the war, must now pay the allied nations an indemnity 

 every year of at least $600,000,000. In order to pay this huge 

 sum, Germany must cut her imports down to the absolute minimum, 

 and become extraordinarily efficient in exporting. For the next 

 two or three years, Germany may perhaps import more lard from 

 us than she did before the war, but, as rapidly as possible, Ger- 

 many will re-establish her swine industry and reduce the imports of 

 American lard. 



We may be painting the situation too black, but we can not see 

 how our pork exports, by the year 1925, can total to more than 

 800,000,000 or possibly 900,000,000 pounds, which is less than 

 one-third the 1919 volume of exports. Of course, another war 

 may break out in the meantime, or some other extraordinary thing 

 may happen, but in the ordinary course of events, it would seem 

 that our pork exports must inevitably decrease until they are con- 

 siderably less than the pre-war normal. And it would seem that 

 this decrease in pork exports will have a very considerable bearing 

 on corn prices, which will in turn have a bearing on corn land 

 prices. Again, we wish to say, however, that we do not neces- 

 sarily believe that corn land in 1925 or 1930 will be selling cheaper 

 than it is today. Prices of all kinds doubtless will continue to be 

 high in 1925 and 1930, for the simple reason that inflated currency 

 the world over will still continue. The point we are trying to make 

 is that once hog exports decline to the pre-war normal, or less, 

 corn belt farming will cease to enjoy the unusual advantage which 

 it had during the war. It may for a time be relatively less profit- 

 able than farming in certain other sections of the United States. 



There are many curious paradoxes in the hog export trade in 

 the United States. While a heavy export of hog products sooner 

 or later means high corn prices, high hog prices and corn belt pros- 

 perity generally, yet as a usual proposition, heavy hog exports do 



