174
DANTZIG.
Meat.
The meat consumed in Dantzig consists almost entirely of produce of the
immediate Prussian hinterland, and includes no foreign meat whatever. The
fact is a subject of loud complaint among all classes of the population, who
regard it as the cause of the increasing dearness, and declining consumption of
meat in the town. As evidence of the rise in the price of the two staple flesh
foods, pork and beef, in Dantzig during the ten years 1897-1906, the following
official average retail market prices may be adduced. In the source from which
the figures are taken # it is stated that the prices are for meat of medium
quality (Durchschnittswaare), and that they are based on the mean of the prices
for cuts from the leg and from the belly respectively. The former, it may be
noted, are usually understood to represent pure lean, while the latter contain
strata of fat. The prices are shown in pfennige per kilogram, in order that the
fluctuations may be more easily discernible, f
Mean Prices of Pork and Beef in the Retail Market of Dantzig 1897-1906.
Retail price per Kilogram
in Pfennige.
Pork.
117
128
123
113
129
135
120
116
145
159
Beef.
113
116
121
121
123
124
133
130
135
147
Year.
1897
1898
1899
1900
1901
1902
1903
1904
1905
1906
It appears therefore that in 1906 pork was 36 per cent, and beef 30 per cent,
dearer than in 1897. While the former fluctuated considerably and reached its
lowest prices in 1900 and 1904, the movement of beef prices has been steadily
upward except between 1903 and 1904. For both kinds of meat the rise has
been sharpest since the latter year. In that year a pound of pork cost 6^<A, and
a pound of beef 7d., while in 1906 the former cost 8|/7. and the latter 8d.
The statistics of meat consumption prepared by the Municipal slaughterhouse
show the per capita consumption of meat in Dantzig to have been as
follows :—
1897.
lbs.
148
1898.
lbs.
135
1899.
lbs.
149
1900.
lbs.
151
1901.
lbs.
133
1902.
lbs.
113
1903.
lbs.
117
1904.
lbs.
119
Figures for the years subsequent to 1904 are not obtainable, but those for
the eight years shown above indicate that the price of pork has a dominant
influence on the total consumption of meat, for, with a rise in the price of pork,
we find a decline in the total consumption of meat, and vice versa. Nor is this
surprising having regard to the fact that the weight of pork consumed in the
year exceeds that of all the other kinds of meat taken together. The exact
proportion in Dantzig as shown by the report of the Municipal Slaughterhouse
Administration for 1904,! are as follows : Pork, 58 per cent. ; beef, 30 per cent. ;
* Statistisches Jahrbuch für das Deutsche Reich, 1907, p. 235.
t Kilogram = 2 2 lbs. avoirdupois. 100 pfennige = about Is.
{ Verwaltungsbericht über den Städtischen Schlacht- und Viehhof zu Dantzig für das
Jahr 1904. Dantzig, 1905, pp. 14-15.
