Abstract
The purpose of this paper is to clarify the change in meat supply after the Russo-Japanese War. The war resulted in the shortage of cattle and increase in its price. The shortage suggests that the limitation of meat supply depended on the existence of cattle not only for meat but also (and mainly) for farming. The solution was found in importing meat from Australia and cattle from the Korean peninsula and supplementing the lack of beef with pork. The import of meat from Australia failed because of the immaturity of refrigerating and freezing tecniques. The import of cattle from the Korean peninsula involved the problem of rinderpest, but it did have two advantages. The first was the high evaluation that these cattle received as farming cattle. The second was that the quality of meat improved during the period they were kept as farming cattle.
