the use even of arable land, and there can be no doubt that this 

 competition has raised land values and consequently the cost of 

 all foodstuffs of temperate origin beyond the level that would have 

 obtained, if the existing population had been able, or had chosen to 

 subsist entirely upon plant foodstuffs. 



The fundamental point in the economics of the production of 

 animal foodstuffs in relation to consumption appears therefore to 

 be this : when the consumption exceeds the limited supplies 

 obtained from pasture lands unsuitable for cultivation together 

 with those produced on farms as a kind of by-product in food-crop 

 production, the price of animal foodstuffs rises, not only because 

 demand is greater than natural supply, 1 but also because the com- 

 petition exercised by the increased production of such foodstuffs, 

 upon the available agricultural resources causes the value of all 

 productive land, and the costs of all agricultural production to rise. 

 Evidence of this appears in the remarkable rise in land values that 

 has occurred in all important agricultural areas within reach of 

 the world's markets, with the exception of Great Britain, where 

 the conditions have been peculiar. In a general way, as noted 

 above, 2 it is the increased demand for agricultural produce, follow- 

 ing upon an increase in the consuming population, out of pro- 

 portion to the increase in the utilised area, that has caused this rise 

 in land values ; in reality, however, it is rather the increased con- 

 sumption of animal foodstuffs that has been mainly responsible 

 for the increased strain upon the world's agricultural resources. 

 Investigations show that the prices of meat and other animal 

 foodstuffs remain comparatively low compared with that of bread- 

 stuffs so long as food-producing animals are maintained on pasture 

 land not required for food-crops. When they compete with human 

 beings for the produce of cultivated land, the price of meat rises 

 and finally settles down at a much higher level proportionate to 

 that of breadstuffs than in the earlier stages of exploitation ; thence 

 forward it tends to move parallel with it. 



There is thus a kind of critical point (marked by the commence- 

 ment of this competition) in the price-level of meat compared with 

 that of breadstuff s ; this point has, of course, been passed in 

 Western Europe ; it has just been reached theoretically in North 

 America ; and it is still to come theoretically in South America 

 and Australasia, which produce far more both of breadstuffs and 

 of animal foodstuffs than they require for local consumption. The 

 rise of the world market for the principal foodstuffs and the growing 

 deficiency of Western Europe in animal foodstuffs has raised the 



1 If the rise in the price of meat and other animal foodstuffs since about 

 the year 1905 were due entirely to shortage, then stock-farmers would have 

 been making abnormal profits, but there is ample evidence to show that this 

 was not the case in the leading European countries. If the ordinary condi- 

 tions of supply and demand had obtained there would have been an immediate 

 and considerable increase in live-stock production in all suitable countries, 

 but this is not shown to have been the case from trade statistics. 



2 See Part I., Chap, xii 



