SOME EFFECTS OF THE WAR UPON THE PRODUCT 

 AND THE CONSUMPTION OF ANIMAL FOODSTUFFS. 



Except at scattered points when some allusion seemed inevitable, 

 little attention has been given in this enquiry to the special cir- 

 cumstances created by the war. For the most part, pre-war con- 

 ditions have been taken as the basis of discussion, and forecasts 

 concerning the future production, trade and consumption have 

 been made with but slight reference to the new directions which 

 the war may cause in these different aspects of the question of 

 animal foodstuffs, either temporarily or permanently. The pro- 

 longation of the war makes some discussion of its actual and prob- 

 able effects in this matter appear necessary. The general economic 

 propositions above put forth remain, but are subject to some 

 modification in view of the abnormal war conditions. On the 

 whole, however, the effects of the war in such prime and essential 

 matters as the production and the consumption of animal foodstuffs 

 among the white populations of the world, seem likely to be tem- 

 porary rather than permanent ; and in some directions at least, 

 their result will simply be to accentuate the march of tendencies 

 previously in progress. 



On the production side the first point that calls for attention is 

 the undoubted depletion of the numbers of food-producing live- 

 stock in Europe in all the belligerent countries and also in some of 

 the neighbouring countries. 1 It is not known exactly how far this 

 depletion has proceeded in the countries of Central Europe or in 

 Russia, but in France and the Scandinavian countries it is consider- 

 able. 2 The worst and most prolonged effects of such depletion 

 arise from the slaughter of breeding-stock, which almost inevitably 

 become reduced in numbers owing to the temptation to dispose of 

 as great a number of mature animals as possible. In Central 

 Europe, from the commencement of the war, and in France, Italy, 

 and the United Kingdom at a later stage, there has been a shortage 

 of feedstuffs, especially of the concentrated kind, and abnormal 

 slaughterings of live-stock have been encouraged in order to relieve 

 the situation in this direction, as much as to provide sufficient 

 immediate supplies of meat for the armies and for the civil popula- 

 tions. In North America, also, since, the outbreak of the war, 

 there has been some unusual drain upon the live-stock resources, 

 at any rate of cattle, to provide for increased exports of beef to 



1 See U.S. Dept. of Agric., Report 109, Office of Secretary, p. 68, also 

 Journal des Economistes, April, 1910, pp. 81 seg. 



2 In the United Kingdom sheep and cattle have hitherto (till Jan., 1918) 

 declined but little, though the proportion of young animals in the totals are 

 not given, but pigs (which produce more meat per head enumerated than sheep 

 or cattle) have declined seriously. 



