40 PRODUCTION 



farm fences swallowed ever more of them within their permanent 

 enclosures. 1 



For the present therefore, and until some of the developments 

 in the direction of more intensive methods of production are brought 

 into effect and bear fruit, the world is faced with a shortage in its 

 meat supplies. 2 Great Britain has perhaps felt this shortage 

 least among important countries, because established connections 

 have given her people the choice of the world's surplus produce ; 

 but in other countries, notably the United States, Germany, Austria 

 and France the question has become serious and has attracted 

 much attention. 3 Continental countries showed signs of modifying 

 the barriers against the importation of chilled and frozen meat, 

 before the outbreak of the European War, and the United States 

 in the same spirit abolished the tariff of 1J cents per Ib. on all 

 kinds of imported meat in 1913. 4 



In forecasting the probable relations of consumption to pro- 

 duction in the near future in different areas, three main tendencies 

 have to be considered ; first, cf the changes in the ratios of food- 

 producing animals to the population ; second, of the general changes 

 in the forms of agriculture in existence, especially with regard to 

 the distribution of resources between pastures and crops, and 

 between the various classes of food-producing animals ; and third, 

 of developments in the direction of manufacturing industries. 5 

 All of these tendencies are discussed under the heads of the separate 



1 " The number of cattle per square mile increases rapidly in a new and fertile 

 region till population has occupied the land at least to the extent of bringing 

 the land under control for cropping and grazing. After such occupation 

 the influences that increase or decrease the number of cattle per square mile 

 are variable. In some circumstances a further increase may be expected, 

 but in ordinary experience a decline is likely to occur." U.S Dept. Agric., 

 Bureau of Statistics, Bulletin, 24, 1903, p. 27. 



2 International Agric. Inst. of Social Economic Intelligence, April, 1912. 

 Review of paper by Bauer and Fischer : " The Increasing Cost of Living from 

 the International point of view." Extract quoted : " The meat question 

 predominates more and more from the point of view of private consumption 

 in the problem of the increasing cost of living." (p. 199.) 



3 Compare Dominions' Commission, Minutes of Evidence taken in London 

 (Cd. 6517), evidence of G. Goodsir, Questions 4232-4240. 



4 The following quotations, bearing the authority of the United States 

 Department of Agriculture, show how the question of meat supplies has 

 recently been viewed in America : "A study of the statistical situation in 

 other countries does not disclose where we are likely to obtain any large 

 quantity of beef for an extended period. It appears that England alone could 

 take all the foreign beef available for export, to say nothing of the new markets 

 that have already been formed in other countries," Farmers' Bulletin, 560, 

 1913, p. 17. 



Again : " An extraordinary combination of circumstances and factors in 

 all countries ... to cause a rapid increase of production of beef, mutton 

 and pork, or all, is not to be expected, rather a gradual growth and extension, 

 which may or may not equal the rate of increase of the meat-consuming 

 population," Bureau of Crop Estimates Report 103, 1910, p. 19. 



* Tendencies in th erate of consumption, though mainly dependent upon the 

 conditions of supply and prices, may also have some force independently oj 

 these factors as shown below (Part II., Chaps, ii. and iv.). 



