BRITAIN'S FOOD

King Country Chronicle, Volume XXXI, Issue 4564, 3 November 1937, Page 3

BRITAIN'S FOOD

la a recent speech in the British House of Commons, Sir Arthur Salter appealed for the provision of granaries and the storage of food as a preparation for eventualities. "First of all," he said, "it would enable us, if we had a long war, to fight that war for several years undisturbed by the terrible prospect of imminent starvation. It would, in the second place, relieve our shipping very greatly indeed. One-fifth-of our shipping is devoted to bringing in cereal imports; this is equivalent to the continuous employment of about 500 large ships. "There would, too, I suggest, be a very great relief to the Navy, because beyond complete command of the sea it is a very great additional responsibility to have to defend an immense mass of shipping in detail and on every route. In particular, it would.

be possible to choose the routes that are less dangerous rather than being compelled, as in the last war, to choose at any cost in danger the routes which are quickest and shortest.

"We had to send ships through the Mediterranean at a time when one ship in four was being lost there, because we could not afford the time to send them round the Cape. We may have even stronger reasons next time for sending ships by the longer route. "If we calculate tne cost of providing the extra naval ships for detailed and dispersed protection of shipping on the one hand and the relief of the strain which would follow from the knowledge that there was something like a year's supply of wheat or its equivalent, everybody would realise that in value we were getting full money's worth in food storage. "The plan has also the great advantage that you have no offset in the way of provoking competitive armaments. Pood store is 100 per cent defensive. Extra cruisers and destroyers, however defensive may be their purpose, may be used for offensive purposes, and they will tend to increase the competition of other countries, which constitutes our danger.

"That is not true in any degree whatever of a purely pacific measure such as food storage. At the same time it saves the additional provision of protective craft which would otherwise be necessary, and which would not in any case give the same measure of security. "One further advantage, and in some respects the greatest, from this measure is that it would relieve the Government of the day, when war comes, of the very grave danger of panic decisions during the conduct of the war. Such decisions are always liable to be taken if there is an Imminent danger of starvation. "In the last war I was Director of Ship Requisitioning. It was my duty not only to requisition shipping but to allocate ships to the different services. Consequently I felt perhaps more than anyone else in the country in the course of my daily work the continuous impact of the submarine losses. "I wish •& could convey something of the environment in which decisions had to be taken at a time of a serious

shortage of ships and with low stocks of all essential supplies. The responsibility is terrible, and the danger is greater because at first it may only be realised by those who are immediately concerned with the control of ships. "When, in the middle of a great war, only a few weeks' supply stand between the population and starvation there must always be. a danger of panic decisions. We have to deal with the menace at sea, and with the terror by night. But above all, we have to do what is humanly possible to supplement the naval protection of our imports by some measure of securing an adequate stock of the most essential foodstuffs. "We need, above all, to reduce the very grave risk that, during a war, the Government of the day may be driven to panic decisions, perhaps by an exaggerated view of the dangers at a particular moment. For that purpose I suggest that in value for money there is nothing comparable with the measure of safety that can be obtained by the provision of the food storage which I venture to suggest."