RATIONING IN U.S.A.

Hauraki Plains Gazette, Volume 52, Issue 3252, 14 April 1943, Page 3

RATIONING IN U.S.A.

BANANA ADDICTS SUFFER BLACK MARKETS APPEAR “PRIORITY” THE GREAT GOD The application of rationing to shoes, without advance notice, merely caused a heavy run by Americans on the whole clothing list which is, only now tapering off, as an assurance has been received from the Government authorities that there is no intention of applying rationing to all apparel (states A. 6. Rothman, Sydney Morning Herald correspondent in Washington). Americans who have only lightly felt home-front privations of the war so far, have responded in expected pattern—-they don’t like it! Most of them admit the necessity, even i± some become vocal in their exaspera tion. 1 Altogether an interesting picture of American personality and national spirit 'is produced in this national reaXn to the aspect of life known as “doing without”—aside from the known reactions of all humanity to that undesirable condition.. A leading tobacco personage o Puerto Rico told me that at least one ship had arrived at)the islands carrying sugar from the mainland. Puerto Rico is one of the world s great sugar producers herself, yet no ships can be found for fertiliser, without which Puerto Rico’s important tobacco crop will not ;be planted this year. Pleasure Driving In New York and Washington I have seen well-dressed concert-goers drive up to within tWo squares of Carnegie Hall and Constitution Hill, get out of their taxis and walk the remainder of the distance. The Government has banned pleasure driving. Going to a concert is pleasure, but the letter of the regulations is observed. , These are some of the absurdities that an austerity complex m officialdom develops. There are others. For example, two poultry-raisers ask for an increased petrol ration on the ground that they are specialists m determining the sex of baby chicks, and this is a national service. The local rationing board is properly perplexed by such a problem which, on jts very face, would find only e judgment of Solomon adequate for its solution. The ration board, however, proved to be not without resource. It allows the poultry men 1500 gallons, and refers the question of further allowance to Washington, which, as American knows, is at present the fount of all wisdom. Black Marketeers So much for the absurdities. Whht / is America actually doing without. It is, for instance, forgoing choice cuts of meat unless, of course, price is not a consideration, in which circumstances there is a .flourishing black market in which the choicest cuts are readily obtainable. Black marketeers pay a thousand dollars over the ceiling price for a car-load of cattle from the raise?, who will not send his beeves to the legitimate market, where a price ceiling exists. The cattle rancher breaks no law, since the price ceiling does not apply ; do not forget the farm block in Congress which saw to that. America is doing without petrol for pleasure driving, and the roads of the. nation show it, but the agile-minded pleasure driver invents a good excuse for a long trip, buys stolen petrol ration books, which are now circulating by the million. America is doing without chocolate. Sweets with that ingredient are becoming really scarce. Know Thy Grocer

America is not suffering from lack of sugar or coffee. For even if both are rationed, the'grocer whom you regularly patronise will look after your interests. This leads to the conclusion that there is really more sugar and coffee on the merchants shelves than rationing commitments

require. . , Bananas are unobtainable, except for the sick, but the variety and plenty of American domesticallygrown fruit are indefinite. Only people passionately addicted to bananas would really fall within this class of the deprived. Tinned goods of wide variety will shortly be rationed, and at present cannot be bought in large quantities. Butter is obtainable only in 'dribs and drabs, unless you know your grocer well. Then there are large groupings of things difficult or impossible to obtain, such as rubber tyres in the second class, and in the first, razor blades, shoe trees, certain kinds of shoe blacking, kitchen gadgets (of which' American housewives have always been inordinately fond), typewriters, filing cabinets, furniture of certain kinds, etc. Nothing is really impossible to obtain, as black mar-

kets the World over have shown. It is not hard to get, for example, a set of four automobile tyres for 200 dollars that normally sold for 32 dollars, and air-conditioning equipment ostensibly under “cease producing’ orders can still legitimately be bought for a private dwelling “if priority is obtained.” .The Great Priority

“Priority” is a name to conjure with.

To replace the broken parts of an old country kitchen stove one must produce a priority and, so far as I can determine, the priority, in most cases, consists in putting one’s name on a printed form. Trunk-line telephone calls between my offices in Washington and New York are always proceeded with the words “under priority No. 3,” but I cannot recall when the telephone operator ever asked the caller to identify himself or explain the purpose of his call.

Rationing touches an active nerve when it impinges on food, and the knowledge that much of the food limitation grows . from lease-lend shipments for civilian use abroad tends to make this privation one of the most unpopular—after petrol. Moreover, food rationings have only begun, and they may become the real thing during 1943. Americans pride themselves on living in a country overflowing with milk and honey, but do not relish seeing so much of them flowing overseas.. There is one form of privation from which the American is suffering which is less easily discernible to him, but is infinitely more serious, and that is the privation due to the deterioration of the quality of goods

which are sold at increased prices. One can justifiably be ironical about hardships which rationing and other forms of Government-imposed “doing without” have inflicted on Americans. Actually chocolate and banana lovers are the only ones who can really complain about being hard hit since, as a nation, we still do not have the slightest conception of what it really means to “do without.’

A Dangerous Privation America has been traditionally familiar with high prices and, under increased national income produced by the war, it is part of the national gesture to get what one wants in the way of consumers’ goods, from food to television sets, no matter what the price. Thus scarcity and high prices have not conspired to produce actual privation yet, but here enters the element of deliberate- deterioration of all kinds of goods, from food to television sets, by unscrupulous manufacturers and sellers. This is a genuinely dangerous privation. Thus with heavy cream removed from the market by Government regulations, the light cream which is supposedly taking its place is generally of bad quality, while butter (which now sells at 65 cents a pound) is so poor in quality that it is questionable whether oleo-margarine would not be a pleasanter and healthier substitute, ' Wool Shortage . The quality of women’s clothes has seriously deteriorated, but the prices