RACE IN DANGER

Wairarapa Times-Age, 15 June 1942, Page 4

RACE IN DANGER

STARVATION IN FRANCE

DEARTH OF BASIC FOODS. MALIGN EFFECTS ON OLD & YOUNG. The French today are receiving little more than half the nourishment necessary for health, according to a statement issued by the Inter-Allied Information Committee. The “Report on the Physiological Bases of Nutrition,” published by the League of Nations in 1936, states that an adult, male or female, living an ordinary everyday life in a temperate climate requires an allowance of food yielding 2,400 calories per day; a person engaged on hard manual labour needs nearly double. Before the German occupation in 1940, food production in France was better balanced than in almost any country in Europe. Rationing, introduced into France following the invasion, has become more and more rigorous. The ration of bread,, in particular, which is the basic food in France, has been reduced to a point which represents only two-thirds of a Frenchman’s normal pre-war consumption. Instead of the requisite 2,400 calories per day of the League of Nations 1936 report, the following is the quantity of cqlories contained in the official rations at various periods since the autumn of 1940: November, 1940, 1307 calories per day; January, 1941, 1,276 calories per day; March, 1941, 1,181 calories per’ day; May, 1941, 1,156 calories per day; June 1941, 1,134 calories per day. Under such conditions it is not surprising that, as Dr. Besancon, a wellknown French hygienist, declared mortality among French children up to nine years old has increased in Paris by 29 per cent. A member of the Vichy government has also recently stated that in all the schools a striking loss in weight has been observed amongst youths of 16 to 20 years of age. The whole race is in danger. And the Germans? The same report states that the German occupying troops are well fed, and the Germans at home have almost their pre-war rations. “The German occupying troops and officials are so liberally supplied with food that in some of the occupied countries they arc the principal suppliers of the black markets.” Low as the figures indicated above are, the suffering French in reality often get less, for these full official rations are seldom available in practice.