CONSUMPTION IN BRITISH EMPIRE 303 



capita consumption of animal foodstuffs. This has hitherto, on 

 the average, been well above the minimum required for efficiency : 

 but the distribution has been unequal as between different social 

 classes in the United Kingdom, and certain sections of the popula- 

 tion have not in the past been able to supply themselves with a 

 sufficient proportion of the more concentrated animal foodstuffs. 



Finally, the Empire's per capita consumption of fish was rising 

 in the period 1890-1913, as indicated by the quantities of fish 

 available for consumption in the United Kingdom, and the 

 fisheries of the Empire yielded a net surplus by weight above 

 consumption. This tendency towards an increased per capita 

 consumption of fish is likely to continue in the future, especially 

 in the United Kingdom and Canada, where supplies of fish are 

 naturally abundant, and where the people will have learned to 

 appreciate more fully during the war-period the value of fish as 

 a substitute for meat. A largely increased consumption of fish 

 would perhaps make it possible to reduce the minimum per capita 

 consumption of meat, above indicated, below that level without 

 undesirable consequences. 



With reference to the margin of spending power available for 

 the purchase of animal foodstuffs, it has been shown above * that 

 the price level of the staple cereal foodstuffs is one of the component 

 elements that determine its extent. High prices for the latter 

 involve not only correspondingly high prices for the former, but 

 they cause a reduction in the margin left for the purchase of these 

 more costly foodstuffs. Now among the white people of the 

 British Empire the chief cereal foodstuff is wheat en bread. It 

 does not appear likely, owing to the great resources available both 

 throughout the woild and in the British Empire for the production 

 of wheat, that its price will rise permanently to a much higher level 

 in the future than in the past ; so that it is improbable that the 

 resources in the hands of the poorer classes in the United Kingdom 

 for the purchase of animal foodstuffs will be seriously diminished 

 by an increase in the price of bread. 



1 See Part II.. Chap, iv., pp. 237, 238. 



