Twenty Years' Agricultural Development. 187 



largely in the new countries, it is not exclusively so — there is 

 a very large increase in European countries. 



Altogether, therefore, it is evident, in Sir R. GifFen's 

 opinion, that the distinguishing characteristic of agricultural 

 production and consumption in the last twenty years has 

 been the growth of the production and consumption of beef, 

 mutton, and pork, and that in this lies the explanation of the 

 slower relative growth of cereals, and the great decline in the 

 price of cereals. The latter have been subjected to a new 

 indirect competition of a most formidable kind. They have 

 not been benefited by the large growth of a richer and richer 

 population as they might have been expected beforehand to 

 have done. The increased wealth has gone to the purchase 

 of meat, and a meat-eating population consumes less cereals 

 than a population eating less meat would do, although the 

 meat-eating population generally has the larger power of 

 consumption. 



He believes that the figures upon which he bases this view 

 would be strengthened if account were taken of the growth 

 of the production and consumption of sugar, and perhaps 

 other articles, such as rice. He considers, however, that 

 the facts as to meat, besides being the most striking, are 

 the most interesting for the future of agriculture. It may be 

 assumed that the growth of the production of dairy produce 

 corresponds to some extent to the growth of the numbers of 

 cattle, but this point is not dealt with. 



In discussing the practical question as to whether there is 

 room for a rapid growth of meat production in the next 

 twenty years, such as took place in the last twenty. Sir 

 R. Giffen remarks as follows : — 



1. As regards wheat and other cereals, it may be doubted whether the displace- 

 ment of wheat by meat can go any farther. There is probably a minimum 

 in the consumption of wheat below which a meat-eating population will not go, 

 so that now the growth of population will, perhaps, tell more than it has done. 



2. As regards mutton, at least, the increase of marketability, which is one of the 

 material factors of the last twenty years, has probably gone as far as it can go. 

 The difference between New Zealand and English mutton, as far as the English 

 market is concerned, cannot be much farther diminished. 



3. The same, perhaps, cannot be said of beef that can be said of mutton, as the 

 refrigerating processes in this case are only being perfected, so as to bring the 

 beef of Australia as freely into competition as that of America now is. But in 



