FOOD SUPPLIES IN WARTIME

Hawke's Bay Tribune, Volume XIX, Issue 282, 13 November 1929, Page 6

FOOD SUPPLIES IN WARTIME

In his Armistice Day address, reported to us by cable yesterday, the American President touched incidentally upon the much discussed question of the freedom of the seas as one of the controversial subjects that “stirred men’s minds with fear”—the fear of occasion for further wars. He did not say anything to satisfy popular curiosity as to whether this problem had engaged attention in the course of recent talks with the British Prime Minister, but confined himself to “venturing” the one suggestion “that foodships should be made free of any interference in wartime—that all vessels laden solely with food supplies shoul dbe placed on the same . footing as hospital ships.” When we remember how closely Herbert Hoover was associated, as their head and front in fact, with the splendid efforts organised in his country for the relief of starving populations, both during and after the War, we can readily understand how this phase of the Question would thrust itself foremost on his thoughts. In Belgium, Northern France, Germany, Poland, Austria, and Russia he gained personal insight into what the cutting off of food supplies—not in every instance as a direct result of the War—meant for the civil population, men, women and, most particularly of all, children. It is no wonder that with this experience, spread over a long series of years, his humanitarian heart is stirred to suggest something that may help to avert a repetition of the misery and horrors he actually witnessed and the aftermath of lifelong deformity and infirmity he foresaw for a rising generation. The proposal is, however, one that has at once started some adverse comment from those who recognise how difficult it is to make sure that relief meant for the civil population will not be diverted to the maintenance of the armed men. It was w’ell proved during the war itself that even foodstuffs admitted to hungry neutral countries on the understanding that it was to be for home consumption only were passed on, under the lure of big profits, for the feeding of belligerent forces Beyond this, as some of the cabled press comment states, there are not a few essential foodstuffs that can in these scientific days be readily transformed into munitions of war—and no doubt would be under stress of circumstance, regardless of a starving people. Be-

yond this is the fact, also mentioned in our cables, that it is not on food supplies that reach them by sea alone that many nations have to depend. For those relying upon supplies by land, equally liable to be cut off, this new proposal for freedom of sea transport would have little meaning except perhaps in the way of conferring a military advantage on an adversary. While we may hope that some means may be devised for giving practical effect to the truly philanthropic proposal, it is easy to see that it will only be after these and other readily conceived objections are overcome.