BRITISH FOOD FRONT

Auckland Star, Volume LXXV, Issue 62, 14 March 1944, Page 2

BRITISH FOOD FRONT

DISTURBING POSITION

1944 MAY BE YEAR OP CRISIS

(0.C.) HAMILTON, Monday. Mr. W. Bankes Amery, leader of the British food mission to Australia and New Zealand, gave an address to members of the Rotary Club, dairy directors and others in Hamilton to-day. Mr. Amery described the British food rationing system in detail, and said that after four winters of war and severe rationing the health of the people had greatly improved. However, the nutritional position had now become disturbing and 1944 might prove to be a year of crisis on the food front as well as on the military front. It might become impossible to maintain rationing at its present level. Compared with the imports from New Zealand and Australia before the war, said Mr. Amery, the intake of butter from these countries into Britain last vear had dropped by 90,000 tons, cheese by 20,000 tons, and meat by over 100,000 tons. Farming difficulties and the need for supplying the armed forces would account for the reduction, but it was serious from Britain's point of view. Mr. Amery later addressed a meeting of women's organisations and answered many questions. He recommended private people to send to their relatives in Britain dried milk, tinned meat, jam, preserved fruit and lemons.