242 CONSUMPTION 



so far as it results in an increase in the proportion of middle-class 

 population to the whole, tends to raise the per capita consumption 

 of animal foodstuffs in any given country. Thus in the newer 

 countries where, for the purposes of the consumption of foodstuffs, 

 nearly all belong to the middle classes or to the wealthy classes, the 

 per capita consumption of animal foodstuffs is unusually high. 



There is little doubt also that the progress of industrialism tends 

 to increase the proportion of those that may be termed wealthy, 

 whose consumption of animal foodstuffs is normally very high, and 

 in this way, too (though to a small extent owing to the limited 

 numbers of the wealthy class), tends to raise the per capita con- 

 sumption of such foodstuffs for the whole. 



It appears that during the last century and a-half manufacturing 

 industries have as a rule favoured the rapid growth of populations 

 much more than agricultural industries have done. This seems 

 likely to continue to be the case. Now industrial progress and 

 manufacturing industries, while they have undoubtedly assisted 

 in the cheapening of the production and transport of foodstuffs on 

 the whole, have been devoted mainly to supplying other wants 

 than those connected with nourishment. In view of the fact that 

 the greater part of the world's productive agricultural land has now 

 been occupied, it would appear that industrial progress cannot be 

 of such striking service as hitherto in rendering cheap food supplies 

 available in that direction where it has played a prominent part, 

 namely, through the cheapening of transport ; and the increase in 

 industrial population in the future, if it continues at the same rate, 

 may tend to overtake food supplies, unless the proportion of animal 

 foodstuffs consumed is reduced, or unless manufacturing industries 

 can materially assist in the more intensive production of foodstuffs. 

 Fortunately, however, for Europeans, there are indications that 

 the latter will be possible on an increasing scale in the future. The 

 conclusion forces itself once more that it is only by the adoption 

 of more scientific and more efficient methods of agricultural pro- 

 duction (in which manufacturing industries can play an important 

 part), that the future supplies of foodstuffs of the desired kinds can 

 be secured for the world at large. 



In some countries populated by Europeans, the proportion of 

 people living on the land is considerable, and the question of the 

 rate of consumption among agricultural populations in general 

 under changing economic conditions, may be more closely con- 

 sidered. It has been observed that improvements in the means of 

 transport between country districts and centres of populations, 

 and in marketing facilities, may have the effect for a time of re- 

 ducing the consumption of such foodstuffs among the producers. 

 So long as such articles as butter, cheese, poultry, eggs and bacon 

 were not easily and profitably marketed elsewhere, the tendency 

 was for the farmers and peasants, and in new countries even agri- 

 cultural labourers, to consume the local supplies in liberal quanti- 

 ties ; but when prices begin to rise in a strengthening market, the 



