tion.

In such countries, scarcely any degree of general affluence would
enable the labouring classes to eat animal food. No degree of wealth,
that can well be supposed, would enable the inhabitants of the
southern parts of France, or of Spain, to live on butcher-meat, which,
[end of page #139] if it became to be in general demand, would be
dearer than poultry, or even than game. The absolute necessity of
living on vegetables, or rather the absolute impossibility of contracting
a habit of living on animal food, must, then, in those countries,
counteract the taste, and prevent depopulation being produced by that
cause.--But it is very different with more northerly countries, where it
is almost a matter of indifference, in point of expense, to an individual
who enjoys any degree of affluence, whether he lives on vegetable or
animal food, and where he gives a decided preference to the former.
{115}

It is probable that nature (so admirable in adapting the manners of the
inhabitants to the nature of the country) has made heavy animal food
less congenial to the taste of southern nations than to those of the
north. There is, indeed, reason to believe it is so, but, whether it is or
not, as natural philosophy is not here the study, but political economy,
the fact is, that if southern nations had the same propensity, it would
be impossible to indulge it to an equal extent.

As wealth and power are intimately connected with population, and
depend in a great measure upon it, wherever they are the cause of
introducing a taste that will, in the end, depopulate a country, they
must, in so far, undermine their own support, and bring on decay. This
is a case that applies to all northern nations, and particularly to
Britain; in order, therefore, to treat the subject at full length, it
will be better to enter into the minute examination when we come to
apply the case directly to this country, and seek for a remedy.

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{115} The proportion between the prices of bread and butcher meat
will help to a conclusion on this subject. The warmer and dryer the
climate, the cheaper bread is in proportion. At Paris, which is a dry,
but not a very warm climate, the proportion, in ordinary times, was as
four to one. A loaf of bread of four pounds, and a pound of meat, were
supposed to be nearly the same price, but the meat was generally the
higher of the two. In England, the proportion (before the late
revolution in prices) was about two to one