There is no doubt that the yield of land when utilized for pasturage is less than what it will produce in the hands of the agriculturist. In a thickly populated country, such as England, dependent under present conditions on foreign countries for a large proportion of her food supply, it is foolish, considering only the political aspects, to employ the land for raising unnecessary flesh-food, and so be compelled to apply to foreign markets for the first necessaries of life, when there is, without doubt, sufficient agricultural land in England to support the entire population on a vegetable regimen. As just said, a much larger population can be supported on a given acreage cultivated with vegetable produce than would be possible were the same land used for grazing cattle. Lieut. Powell quotes Prof. Francis Newman of University College, London, as declaring that—

To produce the same quantity of food yielded by an acre of land cultivated by the husbandman, three or four acres, or more, would be required as grazing land to raise cattle for flesh meat.

Another point to note is that agriculture affords employment to a very much larger number of men than cattle-raising; that is to say, a much larger number of men are required to raise a given amount of vegetable food than is required to raise the same amount of flesh food, and so, were the present common omnivorous customs to give place to vegetarianism, a very much more numerous peasantry would be required on the land. This would be physically, economically, morally, better for the nation. It is obvious that national health would be improved with a considerably larger proportion of hardy country yeomen. The percentage of poor and unemployed people in large cities would be reduced, their labor being required on the soil, where, being in more natural, salutary, harmonious surroundings the moral element would have better opportunity for development than when confined in the unhealthy, ugly, squalid surroundings of a city slum.

It is not generally known that there is often a decided loss of valuable food-material in feeding animals for food, one authority stating that it takes nearly 4 lbs. of barley, which is a good wholesome food, to make 1 lb. of pork, a food that can hardly be considered safe to eat when we learn that tuberculosis was detected in 6,393 pigs in Berlin abattoirs in one year.

As to the comparative cost of a vegetarian and omnivorous diet, it is instructive to learn that it is proverbial in the Western States of America that a Chinaman can live and support his family in health and comfort on an allowance which to a meat-eating white man would be starvation. It is not to be denied that a vegetarian desirous of living to eat, and having no reason or desire to be economical, could spend money as extravagantly as a devotee of the flesh-pots having a similar disposition. But it is significant that the poor of most European countries are not vegetarians from choice but from necessity. Had they the means doubtless they would purchase meat, not because of any instinctive liking for it, but because of that almost universal trait of human character that causes men to desire to imitate their superiors, without, in most cases, any due consideration as to whether the supposed superiors are worthy of the genuflection they get. Were King George or Kaiser Wilhelm to become vegetarians and advocate the non-flesh diet, such an occurrence would do far more towards advancing the popularity of this diet than a thousand lectures from "mere" men of science. Carlyle was not far wrong when he called men "clothes worshippers." The uneducated and poor imitate the educated and rich, not because they possess that attitude of mind which owes its existence to a very deep and subtle emotion and which is expressed in worship and veneration for power, whether it be power of body, power of rank, power of mind, or power of wealth. The poor among Western nations are vegetarians because they cannot afford to buy meat, and this is plain enough proof as to which dietary is the cheaper.

Perhaps a few straightforward facts on this point may prove interesting. An ordinary man, weighing 140 lbs. to 170 lbs., under ordinary conditions, at moderately active work, as an engineer, carpenter, etc., could live in comfort and maintain good health on a dietary providing daily 1 lb. bread (600 to 700 grs. protein); 8 ozs. potatoes (70 grs. protein); 3 ozs. rice, or barley, or macaroni, or maize meal, etc. (100 grs. protein); 4 ozs. dates, or figs, or prunes, or bananas, etc., and 2 ozs. shelled nuts (130 grs. protein); the cost of which need not exceed 10c. to 15c. per day; or in the case of one leading a more sedentary life, such as clerical work, these would be slightly reduced and the cost reduced to 8c. to 12c. per day. For one shilling per day, luxuries, such as nut butter, sweet-stuffs, and a variety of fruits and vegetables could be added. It is hardly necessary to point out that the housewife would be 'hard put to' to make ends meet 'living well' on the ordinary diet at 25c. per head per day. The writer, weighing 140 lbs., who lives a moderately active life, enjoys good health, and whose tastes are simple, finds the cost of a cereal diet comes to 50c. to 75c. per week.

The political economist and reformer finds on investigation, that the adoption of vegetarianism would be a solution of many of the complex and baffling questions connected with the material prosperity of the nation. Here is a remedy for unemployment, drink, slums, disease, and many forms of vice; a remedy that is within the reach of everyone, and that costs only the relinquishing of a foolish prejudice and the adoption of a natural mode of living plus the effort to overcome a vicious habit and the denial of pleasure derived from the gratification of corrupted appetite. Nature will soon create a dislike for that which once was a pleasure, and in compensation will confer a wholesome and beneficent enjoyment in the partaking of pure and salutary foods. Whether or no the meat-eating nations will awake to these facts in time to save themselves from ruin and extinction remains to be seen. Meat-eating has grown side by side with disease in England during the past seventy years, but there are now, fortunately, some signs of abatement. The doctors, owing perhaps to some prescience in the air, some psychical foreboding, are recommending that less meat be eaten. But whatever the future has in store, there is nothing more certain than this—that in the adoption of the vegetable regimen is to be found, if not a complete panacea, at least a partial remedy, for the political and social ills that our nation at the present time is afflicted with, and that those of us who would be true patriots are in duty bound to practise and preach vegetarianism wheresoever and whensoever we can.