232 CONSUMPTION 



iead to a more economical utilisation of agricultural resources in 

 the service of human nourishment. 1 



The bearing of comparative prices as affecting the consumption 

 of different kinds of foodstuffs, calls for notice. The bulk of the 

 consumers in any of the meat-eating regions now consists of workers 

 and their dependents whose means for the purchase of foodstuffs 

 are in general limited, and who therefore tend to consume by pre- 

 ference such foodstuffs as are cheapest and at the same time furnish 

 the necessary food values. The demand created by the wealthy 

 for luxury foodstuffs that are uneconomically produced works in 

 the opposite direction 2 ; and habits and prejudices among all 

 classes may have the same effects. On the whole, and in the long 

 run, however, the law of substitution in consumption comes into 

 operation, so that finally the relative quantities of the different 

 kinds of foodstuffs capable of substitution for one another in keeping 

 with physiological requirements, depend roughly upon the respec- 

 tive costs of production. This principle operates most completely 

 when the general purchasing power of consumers and the agricultural 

 resources available for the supply of these foodstuffs are both 

 limited. 



Now it is pointed out elsewhere that of the different kinds of 

 meat, beef and mutton can be produced cheaply only where 

 there are large areas of cheap pasture land, or where fodders and 

 feedstuffs can be produced or purchased in large quantities and 

 at low prices ; while the cheap production of pork depends upon 

 abundant supplies of low-priced concentrated feedstuffs. When 

 agricultural resources become limited, the costs of production of 

 these main classes of meat rise owing to the increased value of 

 land ; under these conditions that of mutton rises most rapidly 

 and that of pork perhaps least. The cost of production of dairy 

 products under the same conditions is generally lower per unit 

 of food values wherever the climatic conditions are favourable, 

 owing to the greater return in food units per acre. Again cereals 

 and other food crops form a still cheaper kind of human nourish- 

 ment, because of the still larger return per acre under average 

 conditions, and because cereals are produced in many regions that 

 are unsuitable for, or for other reasons are lacking in, animal in- 

 dustries. Similarly also in many regions of dense population, 

 certain kinds of fish of high nutritive value reach consumers at 

 prices which, when food values are taken into consideration, are 

 low compared with those of meat. In other words, under certain 

 conditions fish as a foodstuff can be produced more cheaply than 

 meat. 



1 It appears from a comparison of the prices of fish as landed with the 

 retail market prices, that in the United Kingdom at all events, the costs of 

 distribution are inordinately high, and serve, therefore, to hinder the sub- 

 stitution of fish for meat, which ought, under the existing conditions, to be 

 encouraged rather than hindered. 



a See Chap, iv., below, p. 244 and 247-8. 





