The Press WEDNESDAY. JANUARY 14, 1942. Feeding Britain

Press, Volume LXXVIII, Issue 23536, 14 January 1942, Page 4

The Press WEDNESDAY. JANUARY 14, 1942. Feeding Britain

When the British sugar, fats, and cheese rations were increased in November, it was hoped to maintain the increases through the winter till March; but in a statement reported yesterday the Minister for Food, Lord Woolton, explained that the lower rations must now be restored. Food shipments from the Pacific are, or may be, delayed; and the development of the war with Japan, making greater demands for the sea transport of men and munitions, means that the people of Britain must “ manage with smaller “ imports of food for a time. It may be taken for granted that there was no alternative to this decision, except in the heavy risk of keeping the ration up and lotting stocks fall; but it is not so easy to agree that Lord Woolton is fully justified in saying that, after all, the nation lived on these lower rations till November without injury to health. There have, in fact, been no significant outbreaks of epidemic disease; but, as Dr. Edith Summerskill said in the House of Commons, during the October debate on rationing, "Unfortunately, perhaps, malnutri- “ tion is not accompanied by a rash.” It does not show; but it undermines. There is evidence, sufficiently disturbing, that the fitness of workers has been impaired, both by excessive strain and by poor feeding; and the official food policy has been under constant fire, from critics who spoke with authority, mainly because it fed the people by rigid quantitative averages instead of according to varying needs. What was enough, or more than enough, for one sort of worker was too little, and gravely too little, for another. Professor A. V. Hill, the physiologist and M.P. for Cambridge University, enforced -this point in the October debate by saying that it was unreasonable to give a sedentary worker, on a calorie level of 2500 a day, the same diet as a heavy worker, on the 6000 calorie level. The Minister for Food was moved in the end to inaugurate a very necessary reform. In addition to laying plans for the wider provision of meals for children at school— only 300.000, at the end of October, out of 5.000. were being fed at school— Lord "Woolton announced that food allocations to industrial canteens and public catering establishments would in future be graded, so that the heavy workers would receive three times and intermediate workers twice the quantity of meat allowed to sedentary workers. Unfortunately, from principle and programme to large performance was likely to be a long march. Only 16 canteens in the whole country were providing hot meals for coal miners, and in 1900 mines there were only 751 canteens of any sort. What progress Lord Woolton made with his new policy in the last two months of the year has not been reported; to what extent the present setback will affect it remains to be seen. But it is to bo hoped that at least it will not prevent progress in applying the principle of differential diet; for, as Mr Churchill himself has said, there is no doubt that, if the workers who are bearing the heaviest strain are not properly fed, fatigue will pull output down. It has been widely and wrongly supposed that leaselend food shipments have greatly eased the difficulties of feeding the British population. They have been very helpful, but not to the point of providing, or even rapidly promising, a solution of the problem. The factor overlooked is that the foods Britain most badly needs are those of which the United States has no considerable surplus—meat, bacon, milk, eggs, cheese, dried fruits—and which it requires special sacrifice and special producing effort to supply. The first has been made; the second is being made; but abundant relief is yet to come.