To meet the increasing demands of the western allies the United States, Argentina, Australasia and South Africa are being called upon as never before for meat supplies. Our exportations of meat last year (1916-1917) were well over 2,000,000,000 pounds as compared with 493,848,000 for the three year pre-war average, a gain of over fourfold. Dairy Products. Other animal products of large importance are butter, cheese and milk. Milk enters into international trade in the form of condensed milk, butter and cheese. Butter and cheese, particularly, being items of small bulk relative to their high food value and their high money value, are of considerable importance. The chief dairying region of the world is northwestern Europe, where climate especially favors the dairy cow. Butter, cheese and milk here are all exceedingly important foods, and in spite of the enormous quantities that are produced for consumption large additional quantities were imported from foreign countries. Tables VIII and IX indicate the chief importing and exporting countries of butter and cheese. The effect of the war on dairy products has been disastrous. The large killing of milk animals for meat, the shortage of animal fodder, and the drain upon labor for armies have all contributed to a lessened milk supply. Of the countries now under control of the TABLE VIII EXPORTS OF BUTTER AND CHEESE Millions of Pounds. Average 1911-1913 of Leading Countries TABLE IX IMPORTS OF BUTTER AND CHEESE Millions of Pounds. Average 1911-1913 of Leading Countries Central Powers, Germany, Austria and Belgium were all large importers of butter and cheese. These supplies were obtained principally from Russia and the neighboring neutral countries, particularly Denmark, Holland, Sweden and Switzerland. During the war, butter and dairy products have been the chief, practically the only, foodstuffs, that the neutral countries could supply the Central Powers. But the grain shortages and the decreased ability to import the usual amounts of cattle food have greatly curtailed dairy production in these neutral countries as well as among the warring nations. With the usual supply of butter from Russia cut off, combined with the decreased production at home and among the neighboring neutral countries, the western allies are demanding more and more butter, cheese and condensed milk from extra-European countries. Before the war, 451,000,000 pounds of butter, 65 per cent of the world's imports, were brought into the United Kingdom, although the production of the United Kingdom itself was very large. This, combined with an import of 253,000,000 pounds of cheese and a very large import of condensed milk, made the United Kingdom by far the largest importer of dairy supplies. How this demand is now put upon countries outside of Europe is indicated by the growth of exports of dairy products from the United States as shown in Table X. TABLE X EXPORTS OF BUTTER, CHEESE AND MILK FROM UNITED STATES 1913 1916-1917 Butter (lbs.) 3,585,600 26,835,092 2,599,058 66,087,213 16,525,918 259,102,213 The importance of milk and its products as a food for western nations is exceedingly great, especially when we consider the relation of the milk supply to the strength and development of children. A real danger of shortage of this food faces the nations today, both in Europe and in the United States, unless immediate steps are taken looking toward the increase in dairy cattle. Fish. The catching of food fish is almost universal, and since fishing is practiced by the individual on a small scale with rod along the brook as well as by great fishing fleets upon the high seas, it is very difficult to even roughly estimate the amount of food thus supplied. In Japan fish is a staple article of diet of first-class importance. But even here the grains and vegetables are very much more important. In most other countries fish is relatively of very small importance. One writer" states that the fish catch in the United States is not one-fifth as valuable as the butter produced, and that the fish of all the world are only two-thirds as valuable as the poultry and egg production of the United States. Nevertheless, fish is an article of diet of no mean importance in several countries in Europe, as is shown by Table XI. In the Scandinavian countries, Denmark and United Kingdom, fish was of considerable more importance than in France, Holland or Germany. That the problem of securing fish supplies is now more difficult is to be expected from the naval activities in the North 17 J. R. Smith, Industrial and Commercial Geography, p. 324. Sea and surrounding waters. The estimated fish production of the United Kingdom for 1917 is placed at 8,000,000 cwt. or less than onethird the production of 1913. French production for 1917 will be one-third that of pre-war production; Germany secured threefourths of her fish produced from the North Sea before the war and in addition imported large quantities. It would be safe to estimate Germany's fish production for 1917 as probably not over half of the pre-war production. On the other hand, Sweden, Holland and Denmark have increased their fish production in the last three years, and Norway's production has remained nearly stationary.18 CONCLUSION The outstanding fact in reviewing the food supply of the world is the importance of Europe as an agricultural and grazing region. In spite of Europe's small area, great industrial development and large population, it is the greatest agricultural region of the world. Here are produced the largest supplies of wheat, rye, barley, oats, potatoes, sugar, meats and dairy products, and many other of the important foods of man. In 1913, 65.4 per cent of the world's total production of wheat, oats, rye and barley were grown in Europe; 90.5 per cent of the world's potato crop; 43 per cent of the world's sugar; 18 per cent of the world's corn; 31.8 per cent of the world's cattle. With the exception of rice, millet and corn, Europe leads the world in the production of most of the great staple articles that feed mankind. In spite of this enormous production, Europe is the chief importer from the outside world of foodstuffs and other supplies, like fertilizer and fodder, that are used in producing foods. With the disorganization of the agricultural life occasioned by the war, both in Europe and outside of Europe, with the great demand upon the ship tonnage of the world, needed for war purposes and decreasing as the ravages of the submarine continue, with the actual destruction of large amounts of foods by the destructive agencies of war on land and the sinking of food ships on the sea, the provisioning of Europe is a serious problem. So big is it, indeed, that the food resources of all the world, under existing organization, are being strained to the utmost to meet the needs. 18 Information in regard to fish is from Robert W. Woodbury, personal communication. INTERNATIONAL RATIONING BY BURWELL S. CUTLER, Acting Chief of the Bureau of Foreign and Domestic Commerce, United States Department of Commerce. Proceeding out of the congregative instinct to which all selfgoverning animals give themselves when in prolonged trouble, mankind is now dividing itself into two main camps of warlike and economic action. Each camp aims to make of itself a complete economic entity, self-sustaining and aggressively independent. Rationing schemes under governmental authority and administered by semi-official committees are everywhere in evidence. I propose the idea that the plan of national and international rationing grows out of the instinct of self-preservation and will continue, under the stress of economic pressure following the war, to be a permanent feature of civilization. Let me describe to you briefly the European committees in operation. Many of these do not confine their supervision to foodstuffs or industrial materials although it is true that all of them have a direct bearing on the ebb and flow of commodities in the final analysis. In London we have: 1. The Contraband Committee whose purpose is self-evident; 2. The War Trade Intelligence Department whose duty it is to see that individuals and concerns are prohibited from supplying the enemy with useful intelligence, credit, foodstuffs or other materials; 3. A War Trade Statistical' Department which collects data proving the normal and extraordinary needs of markets at home, in enemy countries and in neutral countries; its recommendations are the basis for action by most of the other committees; 4. A War Trade Department which concerns itself with licensing exports, especially wool, cotton, rubber and tin; one of its chief duties is to supervise the exportation of these materials in amounts adequate to the fulfillment of British war contracts in this country; 5. A Ministry of Shipping within whose control rests the disposition of practically all the European ocean tonnage in the hands of private concerns or of governments outside of Germany; it corresponds to our own shipping board but has the additional privilege of taking over the management of neutral and allied merchant fleets; 6. A Coal Exports Committee whose purpose is plain; |