RATIONING STARTS

Gisborne Herald, Volume LXVII, Issue 20139, 8 January 1940, Page 7

RATIONING STARTS

| FOOD IN BRItAIN BUTTER, HAM, SUGAR DENIAL OF SHORTAGE MERELY PRECAUTIONARY ! (Elec. Tel. Copyright—United Press Assn.) (British Official Wireless.) jßecd. 9 a.m. RUGBY, Jan. 7. The rationing of butter, ham, and sugar comes into operation to-day and will cause changes in many British breakfast tables where bacon and eggs are the favourite dish. Some relief for the national habits has been afforded by the decision to exempt from rationing ham sandwiches, the most popular "snac‘K”'for travellers, of which one railway company sells as many as 600,000 a year. Neither the date of the introduction of meat rationing nor ilic amount to be allowed has yet been fixed. It is known, however, that meat will be rationed on a value bas : s, as it was during the last war. Need to Economise In a broadcast address, Mr. V/ S. Morrison, the Minister res.or.ahk.'e for the nai ion’s rood position, said rationing \ as necessary because of the necessity to economise and use ship-' ping space for commodities not absolutely necessary, and to reduce as far as possible the risks run by the merchant navy in transporting food with which they could, without serious disconrort, dispense. Mr. Morrison denied that Britain was suffering from any shortage of food. “We have all the food we need,” he said. “The action of U-boats, although they had caused the loss of a certain number of British and neutral merchant ships, was not the cause of Britain’s rationing. By introducing rationing before any actual shortage.nf. food existed, Mr. Morrison contended, food queues—characteristic of the last years of the Great War, when rationing had to be introduced—would be avoided.”