CHAPTER IV. 



ECONOMIC FACTORS THAT INFLUENCE THE 



RATE OF CONSUMPTION OF ANIMAL 



FOODSTUFFS. 



IT is convenient now to examine in further detail the economic 

 factors that influence the rate of consumption of animal food- 

 stuffs as a whole. Some of these factors are of world-wide 

 operation, and others are confined to limited areas. Those 

 selected for special consideration in this chapter are : first, changes 

 in the rates of wages and in the general purchasing power ; second,, 

 the migration of consuming populations with reference to latitude ; 

 third, the influence of habit and custom ; fourth, the element of 

 waste ; fifth, the principle of substitution ; and sixth, changes in 

 the age-constitution of certain consuming populations. We shall 

 discuss these factors in the above order. 



It has been observed as an economic fact that increase in popu- 

 lation in the more advanced countries is bound up with those 

 industries that yield an increasing return. Now, generally speak- 

 ing, agriculture is not at present one of these industries ; in recent 

 times, in all the more civilised countries the manufacturing and 

 trading centres have shown the greatest increase in population while 

 the population in the rural districts has been almost stationary. 

 Indeed, in some of these countries the towns have succeeded in 

 attracting to themselves not only the whole of the general increase 

 in population, but have in addition withdrawn part of the rural 

 population, so that the increase in urban population has been 

 greater absolutely than that of the whole country. 



The progress of industrialism with the consequent growth of 

 urban centres has in recent times generally enabled the increasing 

 population to live in greater comparative comfort. Purchasing 

 power has, as a rule, risen more rapidly in industrial countries than 

 in those that have remained purely agricultural, 1 and this is only 

 another way of saying that technical progress, as applied to in- 

 dustry, has caused an increased production of economic values per 

 worker as compared with the production of the same by the average 

 agricultural worker who has not been assisted to the same extent 

 by technical progress. Population does tend, nevertheless, to 

 increase rapidly in some countries where the great mass of the 

 population is rural. Examples are found in the more backward 

 among European countries, such as Russia, and Asiatic countries 

 such as India and China. However, in such cases population tends 

 to overtake agricultural production and the standard of subsistence 



1 The newer countries of great agricultural resources form, of course, an. 

 exception to this statement. 



