LETTER FROM EIRE

Bay of Plenty Beacon, Volume 4, Issue 191, 10 December 1941, Page 2

LETTER FROM EIRE

HALF AN OUNCE OF TEA

RESTRICTIONS IN POWER

A correspondent writes to the Manchester Guardian Irom Lire: "You remember Rupert Brooke's enumeration of all the things he was thankful for. 1 thoroughly agree about the 'bension of hot water.' Sometimes 1 wonder whether that will be one of the precious things here. "The latest notice which we have had from the Electricity Supply Board tells us: 'Do not switch on your electric fire even if cold!' And this has been such a chilly month. 1 am all right for tea, as last autumn L laid in a small supply when w«.> were advised to do so. A.nd 1' have not used any of it yet. The halfounce weekly is very meagre, but as long as I can get coll'ee for breakfast I can manage. Of course, coffee is bound to come to an end some day, as cocoa has already done. It is rationed at the rate of four ounces weekly to a household, but the Minister of Supply says that in any case there is not enough for every householder.

"The poor are the greatest sufferers over the tea ration, for to them it is not only drink but comfort. I do not know how they can manage on it, especially the single people. And the bread is so dear and not really very nice, and it does; not rise like white bread, so that the loaves have got very small and they crumble, badly. It is a'.l very well to tell them to use more potatoes, but they simply cannot afford the fuel to cook them more than once a day, if that. And it is all very well for people like us, who have all sorts of other resources with which to vary our meals, but our poor live mainly on bread and tea--a bad diet, but there it is.

"There are movements oil foot for supplying cheap meals, also for making cheaper fuel available and giving employment. It is a voluntary scheme anil will have to be financed by private subscription."