MONTHLY REVIEW OF RATIONING

Press, Volume LXXXII, Issue 24914, 29 June 1946, Page 7

MONTHLY REVIEW OF RATIONING

Mr Strachey was besieged with questions at a press conference after his statement in the House of Commons.

left no alternative but to accept all the formidable difficulties which rationing entailed. a At his press conference in Washington to-day Mr Truman released a report urging Americans to continue their determined effort to save bread and flour because the world food needs would be very great for many months t come. The report said the United States would ship an additional 250,000,000 bushels of grain to Europe during the crop year beginning on July 1. Mr George Mooney, the chief executive of UNRRA’s European Administrative Council, interviewed in Vancouver, said people would die in millions. There was no solution to the world food crisis.

A special display arranged by the Ministry of Food showed the weekly rations expressed in terms of bread. An ordinary adult will get nine bread units a week, equivalent to 21 loaves, each of 28oz. Asked whether some countries were getting more bread than Britain, Mr Strachey 'replied that European countries had a very high ration, but got little except bread. Mr Strachey said that because Britain would not benefit from the Canadian wheat crop until the autumn it was reasonable to assume that rationing would last through the autumn. “But don’t assume it will end then,” he added. “Rationing will be reviewed by the Government each month.” An official of J. Lyons Company, caterers, said the rationing scheme was absolutely straightforward. It meant that an adult was entitled to nine units a week, and could buy one loaf. 11b of flour, and lib of cake.

‘.‘lt is bad and is going to get worse.” he added. “It is no longer a matter of how many we can save, but whom to save. The barometer of human suffering is falling.” New Zealand apples, which made their first appearance in Plymouth for six years, were indirectly responsible for a food riot when angry women, tired of queueing for fruit, overturned a greengrocer’s stall in the Plymouth market and threw potatoes and cabbages at the vendor. The stall proprietor said that he was allocated 4001 b of New Zealand apples. He displayed half on his stall on the previous afternoon and sent the remainder to his shop in the town. He sold 2001 b of apples on the stall immediately they appeared, but because some women in the queue reported that apples were still available, the waiting crowd grew to Detween 500 and 700 people, who became angry when their request for apples was refused. , The Conservative Womens Conference passed a resolution criticising the Government’s food policy, calling it inadequate, ill-advised, and tardy. Speakers said that the Government kept thrusting before the people the fact of a world famine in the hope, of distracting attention from its own incompetent failure to mobilise British agriculture fully or to buy skilfully in world markets. They expressed the fear that housewives’ sufferings might lead to the disintegration of homes.

Nutrition experts regard the scheme as adequate. They'point out that the average consumption of bread in Britain last month was 60oz a head each week. Adults under the rationing scheme will get 630 z, but that includes cake and flour. The Press Association’s diplomatic correspondent says the Opposition is not likely to put down a censure motion in the House of Commons The Conservatives need more information about world wheat stocks before making up their minds whether the Government was justified in rationing bread. The Press Association says that, when the Cabinet decision was taken to introduce bread rationing, several Ministers at first were strongly against rationing, partly because bgead had not previously been rationed, even in the darkest period of the two wars and partly because it hit the qpmmunity unequally, as little was eaten by the well to do but it was a substantial and important item in the diet of the poorer families. Cabinet eventually arrived at the opinion that the world situation