Swedish broadcasters revised their schedules to accommodate global warming this week, bringing forward one of the country’s most popular and successful programmes, now going out a week early. Thousands of Swedes are glued to their televisions at this time of year, watching the country’s elk population migrate to summer grazing grounds. This natural event has been the runaway broadcasting success of the decade, celebrating six years of compulsive viewing… Here is a link to BBC coverage of the phenomenon, which is significant for public service broadcasters. Just try scheduling an ad break and you’ll see what I mean.
After watching a fully grown elk cross a swollen river, then defy gravity by hauling its long-legged body on to a sheet of melting ice in the shallows, it is clear that commercial TV cannot compete with nature, which has been doing this for millennia.
The scenario is surreal, with more than a dash of irony. Mass migrations occur around the planet, and, as far as we can tell, they go back for centuries, if not millennia. For a species to migrate and arrive intact requires collective recognition of a set of conditions that have been present at the start of countless earlier migrations. As the Swedish outside broadcasters will tell you, this year the elks are moving early. The chances are that we may never know what was different this year, but the elks have clocked it. At a species level, elks and humans will respond to signal carriers such as barometric pressure or temperature. It is highly unlikely that we will ever have words for more than a tiny percentage of planetary cycles, but we should not stop looking.
At the turn of the nineteenth century, Napoleon redrew the map of Europe. He suspended all the laws in France that preceded the revolution. He replaced them with a series of codes or simple, clear legal frameworks, giving men total power over women; removing any political power that religions may previously have wielded; defining the laws of things, such as property, along with the rules governing its transfer. The third section covers succession and contracts, listing valid forms of agreement. The code also defines obligations and contracts. It dumped a lot of hard-fought revolutionary principles, not least womens’ rights. It was not until well into the twentieth century that some of these were restored.
The Code de la Commerce established the principle that it should be illegal to sell at a loss. Article L 442-5 has been the object of extensive discussion and attempted modifications ever since, as people have looked for ways round it. When Sarkozy came to power in 2007 there was a determined effort to redraw the political landscape of the French economy. La loi de modernisation de l’économie (LME) was an administrative bulldozer, which slashed payment terms for invoices, setting a new ceiling at 60 days and easing planning requirements for small (less than 1,000 square metres) retail premises. In among the debris was the legislative wreckage of article 442-5.
The parliamentary passage of the LME was a baptism of fire for a novice parliamentarian at the time, Bruno Le Maire. His first major legislative task was a sea change for the economy. He also succeeded in making annual buying reviews for retailers and their suppliers a passage through purgatory by reversing the buying cycle. In previous years, suppliers would deliver goods through the year and meet at the start of the next year to discuss terms for the coming year. With a year’s worth of sales data to hand, suppliers were in a position to offer retailers end-of-year bonuses for specific listings and stay in business. Under Le Maire’s system, suppliers are expected to guarrantee a price for the coming 12 months, field demands for promotional stock and stay in business to do it all again the following year.
Links to further posts on this topic will appear at the foot of this page.
The Departmental Committee on the Distribution and Prices of Agricultural Produce, generally referred to as the Linlithgow Committee, was proactive in its assessments and investigations of agricultural prices. Its remit covered the empire. The committee took its name from Victor Hope, 2nd Marquess of Linlithgow. He went on to chair a Royal Commission on food in India in 1928. Linlithgow, as the media called him, became the last viceroy of India: his 7-year tenure of office ended in 1943, amid scenes of chaos and civil unrest.
On December 11 1924, the second day of the 1925 Royal Commission, a senior MAF (Ministry of Agriculture and Fisheries) civil servant gave the government response to a raft of administrative measures recommended by the Linlithgow committee. Like a rabbit caught in car headlights, the MAF defence was more a limp lettuce than a fig leaf.
First up was a recommendation to standardise financial reporting for large companies such as United Dairies. MAF headed off further discussion, explaining that the government had “considered” introducing a bill, before playing its trump card: “The matter is now in the hands of the Board of Trade.” Next up, a suggestion that co-operative dairy schools should be revived is fended off with the assertion that a circular on the subject has been issued to all local authorities and “…steps are taken as opportunity offers.” Try getting that back out of the long grass.
The proposition that standing milk advisory committees should be set up to consider and discuss dairy industry issues as the need arose got short shrift. One of these bodies would cover Scotland, another would speak for the dairy industry in England and Wales: the topic prised about a dozen words from MAF: “Separate committees have been set up for England and Wales and for Scotland.” To finish the dairy section of the Linlithgow agenda, the committee urged the government to set and enforce minimum fat contents for whole milk cheese, cream and milk powder, which should apply both to imports and UK production. Sensing an imminent change of subject, the civil servant was more forthcoming. The health minister had made regulations that had come into force during May 1924. Meanwhile, the ministry of agriculture was: “…conducting investigations with a view to determining what standards, if any, may be adopted in respect of whole milk, cheese, and single and double cream.” Nothing gets past a pen pusher.
The Linlithgow committee and its extensive social network existed to promote the interests of landowner members. Its purpose was to develop a consensus around what constituted good practice, modern management and new routes to market. A fair proportion of these families would have benefitted from the compensation lavished on former slave owners: it never occurred to anyone that former slaves had a stronger case for reparations.
The Linlithgow committee (Lc) makes further recommendations, some of which I will list here, with MAF responses where relevant, including paras 258; 260; 302 and 303.
Para 258
Lc urges colleges and local authorities to train students in dairy production, as well as the prevention of spoilage. MAF agrees that this is worthy plan, even if some sites have needed assistance to reinstate standards.
para 260
Lc warns that whey is an ongoing problem, with little prospect of being profitable. MAF reports that a pilot plant has been transferred to Reading university, where development work is in hand.
The topic turns to commercial sharp practice: paras 209, 302 and 303. Since MAF replies to all these items in a single paragraph, I will add MAF’s response at the end of this post.
Lc is concerned that the practice of “averaging returns” is illegal and “not infrequent”. Growers should be checking all the entries on their invoices, the committee warned. Growers were not impressed. Another scam on similar lines started to rear its ugly head. By logging into the sales system under multiple identities, traders could cover their tracks and extract money from linked systems without being caught out.
Faced with significant numbers of food traders routinely breaking laws that may or may not have been enforceable in the first place, MAF resolutely turned its back and looked the other way:
“Efforts are being made to secure voluntary agreement between both sides of the industry on the points raised in their recommendations. If these efforts do not meet with success, it will be necessary to consider the introduction of legislation to deal with the points at issue.”
It would be reasonable to assume that it is the task of government to enforce existing laws and to review legislation that fails to meet the changing needs of the country. Accepting the status quo and asking both sides to play nicely in future resolves nothing. The problems will not go away without appropriate action; on the contrary, they will degenerate into crises.
For discussion of this theme in a more recent context, go to the contents page for France Loses Out and follow the links to individual topics.
In 1916, the UK was growing a scant 20% of its total wheat needs. Bearing in mind that most people eat bread, it made the imported 80% of the ingredients for the nation’s bakery goods vulnerable to attacks from early German submarines. The rapid deployment of U-boats left the British vision of the Blue Water policy in tatters, as policymakers relinquished their once unshakeable belief in the Royal Navy’s invincibility. The country’s agriculture was trailing behind the Netherlands and Denmark, leaving unmet demand for cereals to be patched with shiploads of imports. There was no lack of demand among the hungry cities – British consumers were spending some four hundred million pounds a year on food, a figure bandied about by Christopher Turnor, no less.
The country’s disproportionately extensive grassland was not supporting beef production on a comparable scale to continental Europe. Could it be true, as some hardliners argued, that the fabric of British agriculture had been weakened by years of indifference of, among others, policymakers, but also by a shadowy network of traders, fixers and miscellaneous n’er-do-wells? While British livestock accounted for some 60% of meat consumed by the nation, no less than 80% of the UK’s foreign meat imports shipped from a single port in Argentina, by a single firm based in Chicago, oddly enough.
The first world war forced ever greater rates of change than the old order would ever have imagined. Here is a collection of data curated by Christopher Turnor during the first world war and published in Our Food Supply: perils and remedies (Country Life 1916). Any prices quoted are face value at the time, without any subsequent adjustment for historical changes in value. Turnor does not go into detail on the sources of his data and its authenticity, but since he had the run of market information gathered by the Agriculture Board he is unlikely to have needed to look very far. The tables in this post are mostly scanned directly from Turnor’s book, with the intention of giving readers the opportunity to form a view on Turnor’s line of argument. I have made odd comments here or there, but I defer to the readers’ many and varied viewpoints, believing they are better served by sight of the original publication.
The production figures for cereals and potatoes over a 20-year time period are open to question, but the contrasting rates of change suggest that Germany had a strategic advantage in feeding its citizens over this period in its history. Sub-plot: Germany had little access to food grown in overseas colonies, so that supply chains were shorter and more effectively protected from military action.
It is a moot point as to whether a rural population of 20 million in Germany is going to be more productive than thirteen and a half million British empire citizens spread around the globe. There is no obvious equivalence, since resources, skills and infrastructure are not comparable.
Turnor was convinced that British agriculture was being held back by a high proportion of low-earning grass supporting too few grazing animals. Here is what he wrote in 1916:
“In thinking out measures which will increase the amount of our home supplies, the permanent development of agriculture must be the aim. Attempts to increase, hastily and temporarily, the production of the soil must be ineffective and can easily be actually harmful. We must get to the root of the matter. Present conditions affecting agriculture are unsound and unsatisfactory; better ones must be created.” (Christopher Turnor; Our Food Supply, Perils and Remedies, Country Life 1916.)
Scaling up from a county level to national comparisons, Turnor dug out the following figures during the early years of the first world war:
Turnor then presents a set of headline consumption figures. These classify ingredients and the opening table reflects national dietary preferences. The line for rye, for instance, identifies it as a German staple crop, and may well include sale of grain for brewing beer. A similar interpretation of barley being sold for malting would seem reasonable.
Table VII, below, sets out the cost of imported foods, probably as a set of customs values.
Stats for fifth quarter products went through the Board of Trade.
Forget the presentations, the bonding exercises, the sales pitches, executive bonuses, company cars and other corporate paraphenalia: it belongs in the past. Today we need to adjust to accelerating climate change, political instability, there simply isn’t time for the other stuff. People are waking up to the planet’s problems a couple of generations too late,
Census figures do not come close to providing any insight into the level or nature of economic activity in a given county or town. The productivity of 100 potters in Stoke on Trent during the 18th century could be considered substantial, but of a different quality to Josiah Wedgwood (in portrait). Few would argue that Wedgwood was a powerful agent of change on many fronts, yet this famous Unitarian went unrecorded in Anglican records of any kind.
Technology is a key to transforming productivity, but only in the hands of people with vision. Technical finesse will not redeem a boring or uninspired artefact, but serve to emphasise its lack of distinction.
Tony Wrigley has written this accessible account of how the treatment of census data is changing in today’s more broadly-based research world. The answers to life’s mysteries are no better than the questions we pose to define them.
Own label instant coffees are made with the same sort of coffee beans as their branded counterparts. The only difference is that the retailers control the pricing and, as retail brand owners, they are not held to ransom for shelf money. The Consumer Association magazine Which? is advising readers to switch to cheaper own label alternatives. To stand up its story, Which? gives the example of a 200g jar of Nescafé Original, which was selling for five and a half quid in supermarkets last year and is now the thick end of eight quid a pop on Ocado. Given the scale of Nescafé’s economies of scale in the procurement and manufacturing stages, how does one explain a 30% year on year price rise? Sure, the beans are more expensive, but what does the future hold for premium home delivery shopping channels?
Unlike any other science, economics is prone to give away the plot before the curtain rises. Behind the scenes, everyone is committed to turn out a happy ending, almost regardless. There is ambivalence towards change, even though the job description is built around identifying and predicting the future without fear or favour.
In the summer of 1914, the Ministry of Labour started collecting the food data for the Cost Of Living Index Number. Straight out of the gate, there is no way in which vegetables other than potatoes can be included in a year-round constant economic indicator. Potatoes can be stored all round the year and can be shipped from growers all over the world, whatever the season. We have already listed the foodstuffs that were monitored and index-weighted against other products or sectors. Having seen what the Ministry of Labour brought to the table, it is time to look at how the price points for these goods were settled. The researchers searched out prices displayed by over 5,000 retailers, even though there was a lot of repetition in the mix. In some areas, shopkeepers voluntarily maintained the same prices for known value items (KVI), a practice that would be unthinkable in the twenty-first century.
In the initial layout stages, some prices would be queried: if the point is to gather live data, it should be taken as found, warts and all. Modern food manufacturers refer to a group of products that are “liquid with identifible lumps” and I would apply the “identifiable lumps” analogy to raw price data. The lumps are the very point of the work in hand, giving both insight and substance. The process moves up a gear, averaging the product families and applying percentage shifts to some big and bulky calculations. Statistics at this level is not for the faint-hearted. The table below, taken from November 1924, is an example of the genre. Readers will notice that in this table, farthings are counted as 0.25, but this will change in the not-too-distant future to an integer, pure and simple.
The consumer panel was first used by the Board of Trade in 1904, when 1,944 urban working households were recruited. A footnote on page nine of the evidence volume reads:
The validity of using the budgets of 1904 was confirmed by the Working Classes Cost of Living Committee of 1918, under the Chairmanship of Lord Sumner, who reported that it was fairly certain that “Between 1904 and 1914…..no considerable changes took place in the mode or standard of living.”
The household data was calculated on the basis of the weight of food purchased, making comparisons between years more reliable, the civil servants argued. It is a moot point that a shop price in pounds, shillings and pence should resolve into a comparable pounds and ounces value at the table. To start with, the purchasing power of cash can and does change. The world in which we live is moving away from meaningful comparisons with previous eras, which need to be taken with a pinch of salt.
If there is one thing that humanity has failed to learn, it is that money is not a meaningful measure of anything. Faced with a goal to achieve and offered a choice of unlimited money to throw at it or unlimited time to let a solution emerge from the woodwork, most of us would imagine that money would help us to solve any problem. The reality is nowhere near as clear as it first appears.
Money hires people’s time for a set period of time, but does not itself create any goods or services that can be made or delivered for a set time. There is a wider world of resources that are available for money under certain circumstances and/or purposes. But, once again, not everything falls into this category.
One thing you can’t buy is time. But, many thousands of years ago, the ancestors of the human race had more time than they knew what to do with and they used it to leverage their modest resources. During several millennia, they started to influence the local flora and fauna, clearing spaces with fire and attracting both prey species and fresh plant life. The size and number of habitable locations at this time was tiny, as the planet went through a series of ice ages. Only very localised corners of the globe could support life as we might imagine it might have existed at the time; places where volcanic activity kept permafrost at bay. In these rare pocket sanctuaries, lived the first generations of primitive species that would later leave their refuge and inhabit a warmer world. We will never know what sort of lives these creatures led, but we can be reasonably sure that money was not on the wishlist. Living hand to mouth in a remote but habitable enclave was no mean feat. We can only guess at what they did with their time on Earth, but it was probably much the same from one generation to the next.
Researchers reckon that there was a period of at least four millennia during which early humans and the natural world interacted. James C Scott argues that this period of inter-species preliminary contact probably lasted six or more millennia, spanning hundreds of generations on both sides. In his book Against the Grain, Scott warns that any linear notion of progress we might form in the comfort of the twenty first century has no place in prehistory. The chances are that there wasn’t even a word for it…
