46 THE WORLD'S MEAT FUTURE 



question, says: — "Does not everyone know that a high priee 

 ^f corn is the Avay to attract corn where it is deficient, and a low 

 price the way to repel it from where it is already too abundant?" 

 Then he goes on to say: — "There is a period during which sales 

 are ditHcult or impracticable ; when the prices are at the maxi- 

 mum the buyer refuses to submit to them; and when they are 

 ^t a minimum the seller refuses to submit to them." Macleod 

 declares that supply and demand are the cause of value. This, 

 of course, is where there is free competition. 



The Federal Government will do well to pause before attempt- 

 ing to fix arbitrary prices for beef and mutton. There are 

 few farmers who do not combine grazing to some extent Avith 

 iigriculture, and who in bad seasons for wheat do not rely on 

 their live stock to pull them through. This (juestion deeply 

 ^tfects the two great primary industries of the country. The 

 graziers and farmers of Australia will have to bear the greater 

 part of taxation resultant from the war. In addition, they have 

 their periodical losses through droughts, and are having it badly 

 in the Eastern Division at the present time. The higher prices 

 they are getting for their fat stock now will not be all loss to the 

 •consumer. The owners of live stock will pay a correspond- 

 ingly greater amount of taxation, which will relieve other sec- 

 tions of the community to that extent. The fact that fat stock 

 have reached such high prices must, and is, acting as a power- 

 ful stimulant to stockowners to make every possible effort to 

 increase their flocks and herds. When sheep and cattle were 

 cheaper, stockowners sent large numbers of their female stock to 

 market ; not so now. Everyone is hanging on to his female 

 stock Avith a view to increasing the numbers as fast as possible. 

 This is assuredly one of the causes for the high prices obtaining; 

 but it is only tein]iorary. It is a fixed and immutable 



economic law that the dearer any ])roduct is the greater will 

 be the effort to produce it. For instance, let the price 



of wheat be 6/- per l)ushel, and the industry will bound ahead; 

 but let the price be 8/- per bushel, and the industry will (in the 

 words of Lord ^Macaulay) droop and wither like a plant in an 

 uncongenial air. The most ])Owerful stimulant to production is 

 gain. 



TRADE AND EMPIRE. 



There has been issued recently by Messrs. AV. Weddel and Co. a 

 very valuable "Memorandum on the Imported Meat Trade 

 (frozen and refrigerated) of the United Kingdom, mtb Sug- 



