WORLD FOOD SHORTAGE

Press, Volume LXXXII, Issue 24797, 11 February 1946, Page 4

WORLD FOOD SHORTAGE

Western Civilisation Endangered

VIEWS OF SIR STANTON HICKS (P.A.) AUCKLAND, February 7 i Although the present grave world food shortage was accepted as an aftermath of six years of war, the war had only laid bare more suddenly and acutely the situation which western civilisation had been slowly bringing upon itself for years, said Sir Stanton Hicks, Professor of Physiology and Pharmacology at the University of Adelaide, who arrived by flying boat from Sydney on Saturday to attend the annual conference of the New Zealand branch of the British Medical Association this week. “Western civilisation, which for so long has completely dissociated itself from subsistence farming in favour of farming for profit, has now had its bluff called,” said Sir, Stanton Hicks. “We can’t get away with it for ever. Food is not an article of commerce, it is the basis of our existence, and if we fail to read this into the present situation, nemesis will overtake the western world at a date not so very far ahead. “We tell ourselves this crisis is the result of war, completely ignoring the fact that our way of life—war or no war—has caught up with us,” Sir Stanton Hicks continued. “For too long nations have been concerned more with the production of raw materials for industrial and commercial gain than with the production of food. Food production can not be sacrificed in this way indefinitely, and things have come to a head. It is now going to take us all our time to prevent millions of Europeans from perishing from want of food.” Sir Stanton Hicks has made an extensive study of nutrition and, during the war, reorganised the system of feeding Australian troops. Last year he went to America to advise the authorities there on troop-feeding problems.. “Aftdr conditions in Australia, where people were feeling the effects of fairly extensive rationing, I was staggered to find America bursting with food. The only food that was rationed* was butter, and there were generous supplies of that Although their country was very much at war, the Americans .seemed to have everything they wanted," he said. “I found things much different in Britain. Food there was characterised by its simplicity and monotony, but the people looked extremely fit and happy on it all, in comparison with their American cousins living in plenty.” Sir Stanton Hicks, who is a New Zealander, will be the guest of the medical conference this week and will address delegates and take part in scientific discussions. He will visit the South Island before returning to Australia early in March.