FOOD FOR BRITAIN

Grey River Argus, 22 October 1943, Page 5

FOOD FOR BRITAIN

More from Australia MEAT RATIONING EXPECTED (Special to N.z' Press Assn.) (Rec. 9-15) SYDNEY, Oct. 21. Meat rationing in the New Year is pxnected to be introduced m Austria bv a decision of the full Federal Cabinet. 'The trend of public opinion in the Commonwealth has been strongly in favour of a reduced home consumption of certain vital foods so that increased supplies may be sent to the United Kingdom. The Federal Government has been widely criticised for administrative bungling on the food some of the ertics declare that, by diverting manpower to food production,'heavier meat and dairy produce supplies could be sent to Britain without any need for restricting the home civilian consumption. But a great majority of Australians believe that, as partners in an allin war effort, their consumption of these foods should be reduced to a minimum in order that the British ration can be maintained and even supplemented. The Federal Cabinet is expected to confirm this as the official Commonwealth view. Already plans have been announced for greatly increased Australian food reduction in 1944. The meat goal is 1180 thousands of tons. That will be a record output. The target for butter production has bene fixed at 175 thousands of tons, and for cheese at forty-five thousands of tons. These latter figures represent an increase of ten per cent, in the whole milk production. The Melbourne “Herald” in an editorial said: Until every avalable foot of shipping space from this country is being loaded with’ food for Britain, and until all storage capacity in the country is sufficiently filled to meet demands <jf our war commitments, there can be no comfortable defence for refusal or delay to ration our own unnecessarily high meat consumption. The paper declares: “Australia’s meat consumption of 61b. per head weekly should be cut by half, in order that Britain’s ‘semi-starvation’ ration of 11b per head per week might be supplemented. Shipping space is available for the despatch of primary produce to the United Kingdom. We deplore the fact that there should be any defence of unrestricted meat consumption in Australia when our kinfolk in Britain are seriously threatened with under-nutrition.” MEAT RATIONING IN JANUARY. (Rec. 11.15.) CANBERRA, Oct. 21. The Prime Minister, Mr. Curtin, has announced that a system of meat rationing for civilians will be introduced next January. Mr. Curtin said that two main reasons why meat must be rationed to civilians was that the total local and Allied demand for Australian meat was in excess of the available supply, and it was necessary to ensure that a reduced quantity that would be available to civilians would.' be distributed in the most equitable and: practicable manner.