PIG STIES IN SAVILE ROW

Auckland Star, Volume LXXV, Issue 62, 14 March 1944, Page 4

PIG STIES IN SAVILE ROW

AFTER four and a half years of war, New Zealanders are in the second week of meat rationing. In the light of privations suffered in a patriotic and stoic spirit by our kinsfolk in Great Britain, there is nothing impressive in that fact. We must all acknowledge that meat rationing might well have been accepted in New Zealand much sooner. In any case, eight days of rationing have revealed that we are not going to suffer unendurable agonies, and that even the normal pleasures of the table are still to be enjoyed in moderation. Contrast this happy condition with the eating habits of wartime Britain, as told to-day by Mr. W. Bankes Amery, leader of the United Kingdom food mission, during his speech at the civic luncheon. The accumulated effects of war were beginning to take their toll of the British people, he said, and they were weary of the monotonous diet. Also, there was but sufficient food to maintain health, and there was none of those adornments which made eating a pleasure in itself. Nor was this due to any shiftlessness on the part of the people, who had turned every vacant space to account —even the bomb-blasted areas. Most .telling of all was the point Mr. Amery made when he described the pig sties set up in Savile Row, before the blitz the Harley Street of the sartorial world With these thoughts in our minds, and remembering always the heavy demands which our American Allies must make upon New Zealand's resources while they wage war against the Japanese in our own waters, there can be but one resolve in this Dominion, and that to make our small sacrifices willingly. Already it is being said that, no matter how much meat we may do without, the British people will get precious little more. Even if that could be shown to be true. New Zealand is under a heavy debt of gratitude to the American fighting men for all that they have done, and are doing, in the Pacific war. Those men need our meat. Let us show that our gratitude for service so effectually rendered is deep and genuine, and that such sacrifices as we are called upon to make are not rendered worthless by a grudging and complaining spirit.