No More Food Cuts for Britain

Greymouth Evening Star, 31 May 1946, Page 7

No More Food Cuts for Britain

Plain Speaking in Lords Go vent menl A ccepts Motion (Rec. 11.45 a.m.) LONDON. May 30. All the other United Nations should come down to something Fike the British level of food con- „ sumption before the British people were asked to restrict themselves still more, said Lord Llewellyn, opening the food debate in the House of Lords. He said that the appointment of a world food staff seemed an impossibility, and the proposal to bring in 20 nations would make the Combined Food Board cumbersome. The countries which it was proposed to put on the Food Board were members of the United Nations, but they had done little to help the food situation, and on present form they seemed unlikely to do much at all. None of the South American countries had done anything to cut down consumption.

“Should Stay at Home” Lord Llewellyn added that for the sake of the British people it would be better in future if Mr Morrison stayed at home. Britain could not afford to lower her standards of life any more.

The overall reason for the huge food demands from Germany was the fact that the curtain had come down on all the areas in the Russian zone. The British representatives on the Combined Food Board should be instructed to question strongly any supplies going from west to east for delivery on the other side of the curtain.

Lord Cherwell criticised Mr Hoover’s estimate that Europe needed a minimum of 8,390,000 tons of wheat between the end of’May and the end of December. He said that amount would suffice for 136,000,000 people, who had nothing else whatever to live upon. Lord Cherwell said that no one seriously contended that there was that number of people in Europe entirely without food. Britain was entitled to more accurate figures. Scepticism Shared Lord Addison, replying for the Government, said he fully shared Lord Cherwell’s scepticism. “The demands made have varied extraordinarily. One sometimes wonders whether the claims put forward had been mixed with political as well as economic motives.”

Some countries had only trivial deprivations, but were feeding animals on a larger scale than before the war. “It is of first-rate importance,” he added, “that the parts of Germany occupied by Britain, America and France should be economically selfsupporting. We don’t want the parts of Germany for which we are responsible to be-the unhappiest.” The Government accepted an'd the Lords agreed to Lord Lewellyn’s motion, “that the House is of opinion that the standard of feeding of the people should not be further reduced but, on the contrary, improved as speedily as possible.” The British News Service in Germany reports that the French Mililay Government banned all publh demonstrations in the Tyrol ana Vorarlberg.