“TO BUY HEALTH”

Ashburton Guardian, Volume 56, Issue 121, 4 March 1936, Page 8

“TO BUY HEALTH”

FOOD SUBSIDY IN BRITAIN. PLAN URGED BY AN EXPERT. (Special to the “ Guardian.’ 5 ) LONDON, February 7. A Government subsidy to help the poor of the community to “buy health” in the form of “protective foods” (milk products, eggs, fruit, vegetables and meat was urged by Sir John Orr, a 'leading member of the British Ministry of Health’s Advisory Committee on Nutrition, in an address to the Farmers’ Club this week. He revealed that in Britain there were 4,500,000 people who spent, on an average, only four shillings per head Weekly on food, and that disease, stunted growth in children, and poor physique in adults, were prevalent among the poor as a result of malnutrition. For them, lie said, the consumption of protective foods must be increased by from 12 to 25 per cent, to bring their diet up to the standard required for health. Twice that increase would be required to bring their diet up to the standard required for health. Twice that increase would be required to bring their diet up to the standard of the well-to-do classes. Payingi By Tariffs. If the desired increased consumption was to brought about, these foodstuffs must be made available to the poor at prices below retail prices. -Public expenditure of money on unemployment and other social measures had been well justified, and should now be extended to food. Sir John suggested that such a policy mightTe based on a system of tariffs on imports’, which would partly recoup the Treasury for the money spent on subsidising consumption and home production. “If we could have a. subsidised national food policy in the interests both of agriculture and health,” he said, “agriculture will have to be developed along the lines of increasing the production of foods of special health value. By adopting a bold and generous policy of buying health and making a prosperous countryside, we would reconcile the apparently conflicting interests ot the farmer and the poor people who must have cheap food, and lay the foundations of a healthier, happier race.” Home and Empire Supplies. Lord Bledisloe supported Sir John Orr by urging the Government to indicate what were the food requirements necessary to maintain the national health, the. capacity of Great Britain and other parts of the Empire to produce them, and the sources from which such foods of the highest quality could be obtained on an economic basis. The Government should then assure to the efficient (but not the inefficient) producer a reasonable margin of profit by some form of tariff protection or State guarantee. A world-wide deficiency in the essential foods was emphasised in a report published by the Health Organisation of the League of Nations a few days prior to Sir John Orr’s address. This report, follows a discussion of the problem in Geneva last June, when representatives of Australia, New Zealand, and the United States drew the attention of the International Labour Conference to the dual problem of underconsumption and over-production of agricultural foodstuffs. “Ministry of Nutrition.” In a. further report, the League experts urge that public nutrition as a science should be placed on the same footing as public education—that each nation should, in other words, establish its Ministry of Nutrition. “'Governments are spending money on keeping up prices by a policy of restriction,” the League report declares. “Let us impress on them that this money would be far better spent in increasing consumption.”

Britain’s Butter and Cheese. Britain maintained her butter consumption during 1835 at the 1934 record level of 25.2 per head, in spite of a general increase in prices, it is ■evealed by the Imperial Economic Committee. Empire supplies, which were three per cent, greater than in 1934, comprised 57 per cent, of total imports —the highest proportion ever recorded. Foreign supplies were reduced by live per cent., but Home production has again increased. New Zealand for the second year in succesion, was Britain’s biggest supplier, accounting for 27.5 per cent of' total imports. Denmark was second with 23 per cent and Australia a dose third with 22 per cent. Cheese consumption, however, declined from 9.5 lb per head in 1934 to 9.11 b per head in 1935. This was due to a. 12 per cent decline in Empire imports, as both Home and foreign supplies have increased. New Zealand easily led ns chief supplier, her total comprising 65 per cent of all imports. She sent 16 per cent less, however, than in 1934. “There is room for a great increase in cheese consumption before we reach the standards set by the nutrition experts,” said Mr H. E. Davis, London manager of the New Zealand Dairy Board, in a statement to the Press. “The British Medical Association has set a standard of |lb a week, or 2Bib a year, for adults. What is wanted, among other things, is more and better cheese cookery. A revival of the Welsh rarebit and the old-fashioned cheese savouries would be a boon to the nation’s nutrition.”