BRITAIN'S FOOD SUPPLIES.

Dominion, Volume 8, Issue 2514, 15 July 1915, Page 6

BRITAIN'S FOOD SUPPLIES.

' Sir,—-Lord Selborne, the mover of the second readin'g ckf tho Maintenance of Live Stock Bill in the House of Lords, through .his action,, calls attentipn' to : a very real menace to Britain, namely, the possibility' of: a food .famine.; If supplies from outside could be stopped, it is estimated six'weeks would be suffU cient to create : a state of famine. .'.lt is significant to note in this respect that whereas Germany and Austria, practically surrounded, and cut off from food supplies since August last,: ; 'haye liot .only been self-supporting, but are estimated ;.to have with the present harvest, amplo.for future needs,. 1 Britain 1 is always dependent on outside sources. In the so-called Domesday Book for the United Kingdom, 1200 persons-i are returned as holding an average for each of 16,200 acres, .6200 persons as holding an average of 3150 acres each, 50,770 persons as holding 380 acres each, and 261,831 persons an average of 70 acres each.' The :peerago alone - (some 600 persons) hold rather more than a fifth of all the land/and between a tenth, and ail eleventh of its annual income I. The economic waste created by this condition .is indeed frightful to contemplate, and constitutes a continual men-' ace not only to the British Isles, but through them to the whole Empire. There is no reason whatever if tlio British. people had access to land, on anything like a sano and proper system of tenure, why. tlio country should not be entirely, self-supporting.—l am, etc..-: i . . ■ ' NGAIO. July 9, 1915. ■■■■■■.