NOTES AND COMMENTS

Dominion, Volume 36, Issue 213, 4 June 1943, Page 4

NOTES AND COMMENTS

One of the impressive revelations of the present war has been the manner in which the national health in Britain was maintained at a satisfactory standard in spite of a serious food shortage and strain and hardships arising from the German bombing attacks, many of which were directed at the food-distributing centres. For this gratifying result, scientific investigation of the principles of a correct, balanced diet, and the application of these on a national scale, must lie awarded a large measure of the credit. Furthermore its success has given a valuable pointer to the International Food Conference now being held in the United States, producing as one result a programme of action, to be put in hand without waiting till the end of the war. to ensure that the world's available food supplies will be distributed as evenly as possible, with special priorities for specified classes of people. That there will be a world food shortage clue to the war is considered certain, but the experience of Britain has demonstrated that the problems of nutrition can be largely solved by scientific methods, and health maintained on a basis, not of food quantities but of food components. Many people undoubtedly eat far more than they actually need for satisfactory nourishment, and certainly more than is good for them. If they ate less, and modelled their dieting on nutritive values, they would be much healthier.

There is one item in the war casualty figures given out by the British deputy-Prirne Minister, Mr. Attlee, in the House of Commons, that should lie sufficient answer to the German propaganda now current in attempts to exploit sentimental feeling against the Allied bombing raids on the enemy s country which are now visibly disturbing the Nazi High Command. This item refers to the civilian casualties. In three years of war, said Mr. Attlee. 47.291 British civilians were killed and 55,643 were injured. Now that the hail of bombing has been directed against the Germans, their propagandists are making considerable play of the losses to civilian life in their own country in an endeavour to weaken the determination of the Allies to pursue the air war with relentless vigour. But the Japanese in China, and the Germans and Italians in Europe, were the first to use tins weapon of attack in the present war, even as, in the last war, the Germans were the first to employ poison gas on the battlefield. Furthermore, in the tactics of air warfare pursued, the Axis Powers have shown no discrimination between open and defended towns. Total war was the principle, and terrorism the psychological weapon, in their attempt to break Allied resistance. These have failed, and the enemy is now being brought to realize something of what they have meant to others.

As was explained in the cabled report on the subject the distinction of Knight Grand Cross of the Order of the Bath, conferred by the King upon Generals Eisenhower and MacArthur, of the United States forces, is honorary in the sense that it does not, in their particular ease, carry a title. It is at once a tribute to the great services in the Allied cause of two able American commanders, and also a graceful compliment to their country. If foreign sovereigns are included, most ot the British Orders, witli the exception of the Order of St. Michael and St. George, may be conferred outside the British Empire, although there are varying degrees ot exclusiveness. Included in these are the Order of Merit, the Older of the British Empire, the Royal Victorian Order, the Order of the Indian Empire, and the Cross of Honour.