LIVING IN EIRE

Wairarapa Times-Age, 17 February 1942, Page 6

LIVING IN EIRE

THE DIET OF THE POOR. A letter from Eire was quoted in the “Manchester Guardian” a couple of months ago, as follows:—“You remember Rupert Brooke's enumeration of all the things he was thankful for. I thoroughly agree about the ‘benison of hot water.’ Sometimes I wonder whether that will be one of the precious things hero. The latest notice which we have had from the Electric-

ity Supply Board tells us: ‘Do not switch on your electric fire even if cold!’ And this (May) has been such a chilly month. I am all right for tea, as last autumn I laid in a small supply when we were advised to do so. And I have not used any of it yet. The half-ounce weekly is very meagre, but as long as I can get coffee for breakfast I can manage. Of course, coffee is bound to come to an end some day as cocoa has already done. It is rationed at the rate of four ounces weekly to a household, but the Minister of' Supply says that in any case there is not enough for every householder. “The poor are the greatest, sufferers over the tea ration, for to them it is

not only drink but comfort. I do not know how .they can manage on it, especially the single people. And the bread is so dear and not really, very nice, and it does not rise like white bread, so that the loaves have got very small and they crumble badly. It is all very well to tell them to use more potatoes, but they simply cannot afford the fuel to cook them more than once a day, if that. And it is all very well for people like us, who have all sorts of other resources with which to vary our meals, but our poor live ' mainly on bread and tea—a bad diet, but there it is. There are movements on foot for supplying cheap meals, also for making cheaper fuel available and giving employment. It is a voluntary scheme and will have to be financed by private subscription.” ___