GUNS PLUS STARVATION

New Zealand Listener, Volume 8, Issue 186, 15 January 1943, Page 5

GUNS PLUS STARVATION

Science Is Blunting The Edge Of War’s Deadliest Weapon

(Written for "The Listener" by

A.M.

R.

OOD-the Vital Factor is the title of a Penguin Special so recent that I have not yet seen a copy. Presumably, however, its opening notes will be those that closed my recent article on medical advances in war-namely, that privation, and especially deprivation of nourishment, has ‘been and remains war’s deadliest weapon; that it may decide this war as it almost decided the last; but that science is at work on both sides blunting its edge. The German Undersea Fleet, which in 1917 brought Britain to within six weeks of starvation, has less hope now than it has had of doing that a second time. Britain is still the world’s most vulnerable victim of blockade-suppos-ing, of.course, that it can be applied. Wheat or Meat In 1940 Britain was still importing two thirds of her diet, measured in calories, and actually had 442 million acres fewer under plough than in 1917 to feed 634, million more mouths! However these shrunken farms were so well organised and scientifically run that Britain had,, per worker employed, the largest output in Europe. In one essential commodity, sugar, she had risen from purely round figures to producing from beet a quarter her peace requirements, half a pound per head per week. Ships continue to make the "Long Voyage Home", even if at present new buildings still lag slightly behind new sinkings. And im concentrated foods like bacon and butter one shipload can feed a fair-sized city. But each bulky shipment of wheat or potatoes means so many less weapons "to finish the job". By ploughing in 10 million more acres Britain might grow up to three-quarters of her wheat needs, and a good part of her best meadows she has so sacrificed. But every acre of grass that vanishes takes half a cow or four sheep with it, whose equivalent-chilled, frozen or dried into milk powder-must then be imported from somewhere. The quarter of Britain’s bird and beast population who drew their fodder from abroad disappeared of course, in one fell massacre, over two years ago. Flying Start for Germany The Germans, who announced "Guns Before Butter" as their policy, had in fact the flying start of being already 85% self-contained when war began. Moreover by choosing to grow the most efficiently produced foods (pork as against beef for example) they make each acre feed one man as against the 1‘7 acres needed in Britain. Their peasant agricultural system can continue by its very simplicity as long as cheap labour, German or imported, is available. Local factories conjure nitrates out of the air, Alsace mines potash, armaments throw off slag, and unfil a few weeks ago France supplied phosphates. And, contrary to common belief, the average German on this regime in peace was the envy of all Eastern Europe. Only Britons and Scandinavians fed better than he,

Whether Germany’s conquests reinforce or undermine her food position is doubtful. If rolling stock was not needed for "more essential" purposes than rushing Polish grass to save Danish cows (cut off from their overseas fodder) or to hurry Magyar or Ukraine wheat to starving Greeks or Belgians (whose fleets are feeding Britain) the answer would be certain. Goering’s "New Order" in Europe is a workable concep-tion-even, if only economics were involved, a desirable one. But, in addition to such triumphs as thousands of Finnish hectares bulldozered into farms, and Norwegian seaweeds and fish completely processed (since fish unlike pigs are dumb) to feed man and beast, Goering needs to complete his organisation two things now distant as the moonNorth Africa and Peace. The Japanese new empire is a nutritive windfall — again provided they can steal from warfare time, men, and traffic to organise it. Meanwhile the obe (sash) is drawn as tight as the Italian belt... . Hidden Hunger But if all the combatants succeed, as seems possible, in maintaining a calorifically adequate diet, their populations may yet wither from starvation-not the obvious superficial starvation of unfilled stomachs, but the more serious cell starvation which the lack of one vitamin or one mineral salt can_ cause. Accordingly the Germans, getting in first, decreed whole-grain bread only (for vitamin B), issued weekly rations of synthetic ascorbic acid (for vitamin C), eke out their chronic edible fat shortage with 50,000 tons yearly extracted from coal (for vitamins A, D, E, and K), and rotate certain simple "mineralshot" stew meals which combine dietetic effectiveness with both cheapness and apparent variety. Britain early in the war "fortified" her bread with calcium and vitamin B, and encourages, in preference to back-yard breeding as in Germany, the private growing and preserving for winter of vegetables to replace the mineral-filled and vitamin-filled fruit which ships have no space to carry. America has initiated’ a great state-sup-ported campaign of nutritional instruction, and two of her technical institutes have produced synthetic food mixtures that meet both "hidden" and "hollow" hunger at a cost of some cents per meal. The one is powdered skim milk, whole wheat and soya bean flour for bulk, shot with seven of the eight essential vitamins plus calcium phosphorus, iron and iodine. The second is a little three-cent pill (like the Family Christmas Dinner that baby swallowed) guaranteed to transform a porridge breakfast and a lean-meat dinner into The Perfect Diet. . The last war (competent authorities contend) killed more European civilians than soldiers and pushed 121% million (at least) of Asiatics below the riceline by its diversion of labour from consumption purposes. It would be an amazing consummation should this war, in the course of similar "white slaughter", incidentally create the will, the knowledge, and the organisation at last to feed our race as the human frame and its full functions require,