THIS WORLD OF PLENTY

Grey River Argus, 19 September 1945, Page 6

THIS WORLD OF PLENTY

(Rev. C. R. Sprackett, M.A.). A fine film was shown in Reefton recently and many people were impressed bj 7 it. “This World of Plenty” was a film about production and the message of this British Ministry of Information film were excellent. No one should miss it. The attention is caught at once by a picture of a simple and ordinary yet fundamental thing—a ploughed paddock. The soil is the source of our food and we are completely dependent upon it. Then we were shown in rapid succession people everywhere in the world ploughing, sowing, planting, harvesting—all busy producting food.

FOOD AS IT WAS The film’s message was clear and unmistakable. Food as it was before the war meant plenty of food for some but not for many, because though great quantities of food were produced, much was destroyed and wasted to keep markets stable and prices from falling. The American farmer in the Mid-West, ploughed in acres of his wheat and the British farmer noured some of his milk down the drain. Neither of them wanted to do it, but they had to do it if they were to survive. So many people in the- United States and in Great Britain had so little in their purses and pockets that they could not buy the foods they needed. So people queued up for soup and bread, rummaged in garbage tins and attempted to get food by rioting. In our own land farmers could not sell their butter yet Welsh miners were buying margarine without vitamins in it and suffering from the eye . disease, nystagmus, owing to deficiency of vitamin A. There was plenty of food before the war, but there was. something wrong with the distribution °f k. FOOD AS IT IS “This World of Plenty” was made during the war and it showed Britain providing health-giving food for all her people. On the home front and the battle front people received food through planned production ana distribution’. There was food for. all because it was essential for survival and for the winning of the war. All expectant mothers, babies and school children received milk. Factory workers and miners could get nourishing three course meals in factory and pit-head canteens at a low cost. In war time families had the purchasing power and they- could buy sufficient food for life and health. What has happened in Britain during the wai years shows what can be done when there is a will to do it. FOOD AS IT MIGHT BE Food for war then food for peace was the point of this part of the film That is the opinion of people of 1945. There should be no waste and destruction of food and no malnutrition and hunger in this world ot plenty. That was at. bottom . the conclusion of the United Nations Conference on Food and Agriculture at Hot Springs, Virginia, in May 1943, to which New Zealand sent representatives. There the representatives of 43 nations agreed that governments individually and internationally must lake over the responsibility of'seeing that their own people and other peoples obtain the lood necessary for life and health and that agriculture and land policies should be directed to that end. There should be freedom from hunger and want as the Atlantic Charter declares and it can be achieved in peace as well as in war through increasing, the production of food and by providing power to secure adequate meals. ’ See “This World of Plenty” and hear its message of freedom from want and hunger in the world for all peoples by a world food plan through which surplus food stocks are sent to those peoples who have not enough to eat. ONE WORLD It is a Christian teaching that all people should have sufficient food for life and health, for food is God’s gift to the whole human race and not to one part of it. This teaching should have the practical support of all Christians and all people of goodwill and the support could be given by earnest attention to the closer settlement of < our agricultural areas, planned food growing and. the elimination of waste. Rationing too is a means of helping to send more food to Europe. We live in one world and a famine in India has something to do with us. When children in Brussels, Berlin, Athens, Cairo and Tokio pick over rubbish tins for food ■—then, it concerns us. Magazines and daily papers tell of the distress of other peoples and these facts should arouse our sympathy and our action.

Our world is one world. In the long run we Now Zealanders cannot enjoy plenty while our neighbour goes hungry. If people cannot get food by work they will try, to take it by force. Eliminate hunger and you have gone a long way to eliminate war. Because of Christ’s teaching of love to all men and because of the teaching that all people should have sufficient food for life and health I look to the Christians to lead in the campaign for freedom from hunger for all in this world of plenty.