256 CONSUMPTION 



prices of the latter in the newer countries, especially those of the 

 Southern Hemisphere at a rate out of all proportion to the real 

 costs of production, and the difference has appeared in a remarkable 

 rise in the values of accessible pasture lands in those countries. 

 The latter areas have benefited by the fact that in Europe and, 

 to a limited extent, in North America, the critical point has been 

 passed and food-producing animals are now actively competing 

 for the produce of arable land. In the past when countries were 

 economically much more isolated than under the present world- 

 market conditions, changes in the comparative prices of meat and 

 breadstuffs were much more noticeable in individual countries. 

 In both France and England between 1800 and 1900 the average 

 prices of meat rose much more in money values than those of wheat. 1 

 This was due chiefly to the fact that the critical point, above re- 

 ferred to, was passed in these countries during the 19th century, 

 though it was also partly due no doubt to the fact that higher 

 yields and the introduction of machinery, together with cheap 

 imports, tended to keep down grain prices relatively. 



Except where there are unlimited areas of pasture lands, which 

 are either not capable of cultivation or are too remote from the 

 world's markets to be so used economically, animal foodstuffs are 

 a costly form of nourishment in terms of agricultural resources. 

 On an average a given area of land capable of cultivation will 

 support from eight to ten times as many people when producing 

 plant foodstuffs consumed as such, as it will when made to pro- 

 duce animal foodstuffs under the same methods of cultivation. 2 

 If, instead of being cultivated, such land is laid to pasture, the 



1 See Essais d' Economic Sociale, 1871 (edited by Imbart de Latour), p. 148. 

 " The price of meat has always followed an upward movement ; that of beef, 

 which cost 5 or 6 sous a pound in the last century, and 11 to 12 sous thirty 

 or forty years ago, now amounts to 22 to 24 sous and the price tends to rise 

 further." 



Imbart de Latour (La Crise Agticole, p. 26) quotes the following figures 

 from Yves Guyot, showing the rise in meat prices and in wheat prices in 

 France and in England between 1790 and 1880 : 



INCREASE IN MEAT INCREASE IN WHEAT 

 PRICES. PRICES. 



France 275% 15-8% 



England 200% nil (bread) 



The greater increase in meat prices in both countries is due partly to a 

 marked increase in the effective demand for meat ; but changes in the methods 

 of production account for some part of the difference. In the 18th century 

 grazing land was relatively plentiful and meat was produced with little 

 labour at a time when wages were low. During the 19th century, owing to 

 developments in agricultural machinery, the labour-costs of producing wheat 

 fell considerably, while, on the other hand, owing to the necessity which arose 

 for the stall-feeding of meat animals in these countries, the labour-costs of 

 producing meat rose sharply. The difference in the market prices of meat 

 and wheat in Europe about 1880 was due also in some measure to the greater 

 transportability of wheat produced cheaply in North America. 



2 A. D. Hall, Agticulluve after the War, p. 89. 



