WEEKS MEAT AT ONE MEAL

Chronicle (Levin), 1 July 1947, Page 4

WEEKS MEAT AT ONE MEAL

TOLL OF MEAGRE FOODSTUFFS IN BRITAIN "The meat which each one of you has eaten here tonight is the equivalent of a week's ration for an adult in Great Britain today. Just try for a moment to visualise how. f ar it would go if it was all you had for a week." This comment was made by Mr. O- G. A. Horne> of Wellington,, who only recently returned frpm the United Kingdom after more than four months spent there, in a talk he gave to Levin and Wellington • Rotarians last night. The weekly meat ration, said Mr. Horne, was Is WPrth plus 4d worth of corned beef, Other rations were: Butter- and margarine, 7 ozs. with not more than 3 ozs. pf butter; fat, 4 ozs. in pooking fat and 2 ozs. in other fats, the quantities. alternatIng weekly; cheese, 2 ozs.; sugar, 8 ozs.; and bacon, 2 ozs. The rations Were such that they did not give the people the same pep as they had ih the war years, though they wsre going aboiit their work with syen greater spirit. Mr, Horne tgld of a visit he had made to a cottpn producing faCtory, where an engineer had shown him a graph depicting the day's consumptjon of power , by the plant. It had ben most revealing in its connection with the food situation. At the start of the day,

because it was soon after the workers had had breakfast, the amount of power consumed was relatively high. Then it gradually dropped to morning tea time, after which It was higher again, falling away once more towards lunch time. After lunch the consumption increased again, and the same decline and rise was associated With afternoon tea, and the end of the day. Each time the recovery after the decrease did not reach as high a level as the peak after the previous meal or refreshment period. He had been informed that it was due to the meagre foodstuffs causing a falling off in the energy, efficienpy and interest of those workers who operated the machinery. Exports from Graat Britain had shown an increase, added Mr, Horne, but ev.erywhere he found that the keynote was work, sweat and more work. He appealed to ali present to do their utmost to see that as many parcels as possible went forward from New Zealand, and th.at dripping and soaps in particular were sent, both of which found immediate use. Praposing a vote of thanks later to the speaker, Mr. H. B. Burdekin said his delightful talk had left those present with two thoughts — firstly, the debt, if it could be assessed, of what New Zealanders owed their kinsfolk in theUomeland, and secondly, it gave a fresh sense of the responsibility of seeing that everything possible was done In the despateh of parcels.