ENGLAND FEEDING AND FIGHTING.

Taranaki Daily News, 18 April 1917, Page 6

ENGLAND FEEDING AND FIGHTING.

Germany is living on .10 per cent per capita of what it was consuming before the, war. But England is consuming, feeding and fighting to (he extent that her physical force is"increased by far more than "0 per cent. The whole nation is fighting, men, women and children. Thero is nothing else thought of, talked of, or worked for throughout the whole country. All the leisured classes. men and women, are one way or another, in the war. The women are joining in the ranks of labor, and all labor is today for the country, with everything in production, trade and commerce locked in with the war issue. England did not waken to the war power that comes through cutting out luxuries as soon as Germany, but she is on the road to just as thorough a conservation of all forces. All the nations arc in the struggle for economic existence that fighting forces may b* increased. Germany and England are rather ashamed of it; Russia and France are proud of it. The shutting up of bar-rooms, the closing of places of amusement, the closing of cafes and the shutting off of lights at 0.30 all make for increased man power and greater war efficiency. It is not only a financial and a metal, but a social and economical struggle, in Europe, such as the world has never dreamed of, and of which the people of the United States have almost no comprehension. .' : . 4 , ~i, ~,.-\'' "' ,' THE PEOPLE AND THEIR ' ■ ij> RESOURCES. 'J .A Formerly armies fought battles, and the war was wherever the armies moved To-day five- hundred million people arc arrayed in battle and organising to win in war. They are organising in clothing, food, drink, tlie discarding of luxuries, increase in the energies and hours of labor, and in the mutual burdens of all forms of taxation. Any excess profit is promptly taxed. In England more than two billion a year, or one quarter the cost, is being raised by taxation. Grains are being ground more coarsely, with the result that in bulk they produce 25 per cent, more, a smaller percentage of nutriment is lost,*and, the food being richer in nutriment, consumption per capita is diminished without bread cards or other German regulations. In all fighting countries luxuries are being steadily diminished. Cream, fat. sugar, wines, expensive meats and fruits are being steadily reduced in consumption. Champagne is forbidden in Russia; (( was never at so low a price in France. The whole world is coming into a new civilisation, a new manhood and a new womanhood, and a new strength for both war and peace; anl from Washington to San Francisco there appears to a? little comprehension of the issues and the economic results that must incvitibly flow therefrom.