THE EUROPEAN ARMIES AND THE COLONIAL MEAT SUPPLY.

Tuapeka Times, Volume XX, Issue 1334, 16 March 1887, Page 5

THE EUROPEAN ARMIES AND THE COLONIAL MEAT SUPPLY.

An order, received by cable message from Europe, for a million pounds of beef in 6lb tins, has been placed in Roekhampton. The assumption is naturally made that the meat is wanted for one of the nations now arming on the Continent. An order for a million pounds sounds like a large order, but (says the " Melbourne Argus ") a million pounds is not much for the hosts of to-day. The soldier's rations are a pound and a-half when on the march or in the field. In 1870 Germany had more than a million of men under arms, so that she required a million and a-half pounds of meat per di9m, and a million and a-half pounds of bread or biscuit also. The great art of war is to get this enormous mass of provisions regularly to the men. Fighting the enemy is often easy enough. The task is to feed your troops. The million pounds of beef ordered from Rockhampton would have given the German hosts of 1870 a dinner, but would have left them with only a snack for tea, and with nothing for breakfast ; and indeed, when the civilians employed about an army are taken into account, it may be said that the million pounds would barely have given the German hordes a dinner. The German commissariat must have had to see its way to provide more than two millions of pounds per day. This would mean an avarage slaughter of 2500 head of cattle daily ; in a month, therefore, such an army would consume 75,000 head of cattle. The Franco-German war lasted seven months, and for thafe period 325,000 head of cattle would be required, and the French hosts would require nearly as many more. When thes9 figures are taken into account, the cost of modern wars begin to dawn on one. — " Argus."