View report page

1913] 270
Last year the Medical Officer of Health mentioned the meat trade
with special reference to the decreased importation of live animals and meat,
and the possibility of the foreign supply being curtailed. Since then the meat
problem has become more acute, for the world's consumption increases more
rapidly than the supplies.
Indeed, a great authority recently declared that it is unlikely that the
development which may be expected in the world's stock farms will succeed
in reducing prices to the comfortable level of 20 years ago. The great
influence at work to increase the value and scarcity of meat in this country has
been the new fiscal policy of the United States, which permits the free import
of refrigerated meats, which is tantamount to saying that the Argentine
supplies are being drawn to them. Once upon a time the United States fed
Europe very largely; now they draw meat from so far afield as Australia; and,
indeed, during last year consignments of packed meats have been sent to
New York from our own borough. The fact is that owing to enormous
immigration and to bad and wasteful farming, the United States have become
a meat consuming country, and have ceased to be productive in their supply
How great this has been is well pointed out in an article in "The Times,"
where it says that: "As recently as 1907 the imports of cattle and beef to
Great Britain were estimated at 231,599 tons ; last year they had dropped to
3,316 tons. In estimating such figures some allowance is usually made for the
artificial fluctuations introduced by the operations of trusts or combines; but
although these interests can temporarily dam or divert a stream of natural
tendency, they cannot permanently control it. The main fact is that in most
of the chief countries of the world increasing prosperity and the spread of
new modes of civilization are making mankind carnivorous. There is no sign
that the luxury of increased flesh food will be forgone by a large proportion
of those who have once acquired it, and the competition for the supply of
meat will steadily tend to drive up its price."
This competition for the meat supplies of the world may be a blessing
in disguise for the greatest of our industries, agriculture, because the scarcity
of foreign cattle must of necessity create a greater demand for British cattle,
the breeders of which could then demand a higher price than was hitherto
obtainable.
There is, however, another aspect of this question which is of importance to
sanitary authorities, viz.,the substitution of foreign for British beef; indeed, for a
considerable time past the practice has been growing for butchers to substitute