EIGHTH YEAR OF FOOD RATIONING

Rotorua Morning Post, Issue 5297, 9 January 1947, Page 5

EIGHTH YEAR OF FOOD RATIONING

E. G. 1

Webber,

winter queues GOOD RELATIONS WITH SHOPREEPERS

(From

N.Z.P.A.

Speeial Correspondent)

LONDON, Jan. 8. To-day begins the eighth year of the imposition of food latioring in Britain. It is an anniversary which is unlikely to be celebrated or even remembered by the British housewife standing in fish, or ineat, or vegetables queues in a temperature very little above freezing point, or walking through sludge and snow cn another of the innumerable missions rationing imposes upon her. Theoretically, food rationing eliminated qneues at the family groeer shcp, bnt in practice it substituted a multitude of snpply missions, for austerity, like charitv, begins at home. Few grocers in Britain are in a position to hold stocks of points goods — extras like tinued meats, jams, fish, soups, coffee, milk and so on. They receive their supplies weelc to weelc and usually on different days of the weelc. The housewife who is lucky enough to be in the shop when they are released, gets them — one who arrives half an liour later will be met with the inevitable "sorry, madara." if she is still on formal terms with her grocer, or "sorry, dear," is it is one of those friendly shops where an endearment is used with complete social impartiality. The points and ration system means that the zealous housewife who wants her share of whatever is available must keep hfir grocer almosi literally under her eye. She must call in the morning, perhaps again in the afternoon and keep on doing it. She may not have to queue at the grocer's, but will certainly have to do so for fish, meat, vegetables, and any of the infrequent amusements she may seek to enjoy. Unsociable Winter In the transient English summer and spring the queue is inclined to be- a f'ri-endly place. All its members feel themselves impelled by a common purpose and this produces a sociable spirit. There is nothing sociable about the English queue in the almost permanent English wintertime. Monday was the col'dest day Britain had experienced for the past five years, and yesterday snow fell over the greater part of the country and was still falling or being churned into muddy sludge by the traific of city streets. Hundreds of thousands of women and children are standing in this sludge and snow waiting for the day's rations. To-day many of them will be disappointed, because there will be another strike by market delivery men, but that is incidental. In working class neighbourhoods — and it is well to remember that these greatly predominate — a very large number of these women and children still wear no stockings. The reason is not always that they cann ot afford them, but that they cannot get them. Children go Shopping At week-ends, most queues also contain a surprising proportion of children, many between the ages of five and 12 years. They are sent, firmly clutch'ing mother's purse,' a note to" the shopkeeper, and a large shopping baslcet, by parents who cannot leave their household chores. It is to the credit of the shopkeepers that most of them are as fairly dealt with as if they were in f ull possession of their bargaining powers. Infants in perambulators are another inevitable aceompaniment of the .queue. They accompany the shopping housewife because they cannot bq left at home. Moreover, perambulators in Britain carry a wide variety of contents besides babies. They are the housewives' auxiliary transport.

It would be unfair to the British liusband to pretend that the full burden of queuing . rests upon his wife. On working days he queues for a bus, tram, underground train, lunch, and cigarettes, and often at week-ends he will be seen with the family shopping bhsket. The Queue Habit is Ingrained After seven years it is alleged that queueing has become a British habit, and that if two or three persons are gathered together, so long as they are in file, others will inevitably form up behincl them c-n the general assumption that it is better to be in a queue than out of it. This, of eourse, is an exaggeration, for in a thickly-populated country like Britain there will always be queues for something. They are, after all, an indication of the orderly British spirit which prefers to take things as they co-me rather than clamour and stampede for them. Nevertheless, no one pretends that he really likes queues. Those who have seen them waiting for Laurenee Olivier or thp latest film, see only one form of queue. • They do not see the hundreds of thousands of patient women who have been stgnding in Britain's suburban queues for seven .years in all the varieties of weather Britain can provide, and who, since the battle of austerity still goes on, have no prospects of demobilisation. They, better than anyone else, can, , take to themselves the Miltonian dictum: "They also serve, who only stand and wait."