Britain Must Have All Food We Can Send

Manawatu Times, Volume 68, Issue 160, 8 July 1943, Page 5

Britain Must Have All Food We Can Send

Heroic Defiance of Hitler’s Blockade (By Telegraph—Press Assn.—Copyright.) Received Thursday, 1 a.m. SYDNEY, July 7. Britain’s wartime rood problems wero graphically described in a national broadcast to-night by Mr. W. Bankes Amory, leader of the British Food Mis sion. He quoted an American monthly journal which said recently that Britishers were now fitter but not fatter and' that Britishers neither eat to live nor live to eat, hut eat to fight. In order to eat to fight, Mr. Amery said Britain must import foodstuffs. The sailors were doing their job taking those supplies across perilous waters. Australians and New Zealanders were also doing their job producing food in the midst of various wartime difficulties. Britain needed certain varieties of Australian and New Zealand produce

more than she did in peace. Lord Wool, ton had authorised him to say that Britain wanted all the meat and dairy produce Australia and New Zealand could provide to maintain Britain’s existing butchers’ meat ration of a shilling’3 worth a week, butter two ounces and cheese three ounces a week.

A typical family of four persons had four shillings a week to spend on butchers’ meat, say a three lb. joint which when cooked would weight about l^lhs. That was how Britain had defied Hitler’s blockade. She had tightened her belt on many occasions. Her woman had worked, improvised, contrived and suffered. Her men had toiled and fought, but had not lost courage. Her children had had more milk than in peacetime but Britain still needed assistance on the food front. Fortunately she knew Australia and New Zealand would he there.