THE WORLD'S MEAT FUTURE 



Lord Harcourt recently said in the House of Lords that 

 while he was acting as President of the Board of Trade, in 1916, 

 he acquired information which caused him the greatest anxiety 

 in regard to the meat supply, and added, " After the war there 

 will be a scarcity of meat — almost a war famine. Germany, 

 Belgium, and Holland are faced with a post-war deficit of 

 8,000,000 head of cattle, and Denmark, Austria, Servia and 

 Roumania another 8,000,000. Europe, therefore, will seek 

 to import from 16 million to 20 million head of cattle. Britain 

 produces only 60 per cent of the meat consumed. I am so 

 impressed with the seriousness of the position last year that I 

 have sought to arrange a scheme for securing a supply of 

 chilled meat, which will be ample for Britain for several years 

 after the war." 



This statement, by a prominent British statesman, is of such 

 vital importance to the Empire that to the best of my ability I 

 am going to place before those who care to read it, the position 

 to-day in the various stock-raising countries of the world. 



At the outset, I may say that I fear the information given 

 to Lord Harcourt must have been of a hasty character. 

 Granted that the shortage in the seven European countries 

 named would amount to 16,000,000 head of cattle, that does 

 not mean that a similar number or more would have to be 

 imported to make up the shortage. First of all there will be 

 probably 16,000,000 to 20,000,000 adults less to eat meat, and 

 the children, or those of them left alive, will not by any means 

 require so much meat for a few years after the war. Probably 

 countries like Denmark, Holland, Germany and Austria will 

 have kept a large proportion of breeding stock, and in three 

 or four years a very large increase of young cattle may be 

 looked for, particularly if they buy bulls from Britain, United 



