RATIONING IN EUROPE

Nelson Evening Mail, Volume LXXIII, 10 January 1940, Page 3

RATIONING IN EUROPE

FOOD SHORTAGES NEUTRALS SUFFER LONDON, 31st December. The reaction to the approaching day of rationing in England is summed up generally in the remark, “What of it?” for Britons realise, but deplore, that other European countries, even nonbelligerents, are suffering more serious privations. A shortage exists throughout Europe. Not only does Germany demand “guns before butter,” but the vast outlay on armaments, mobilisations, and preparedness has reduced living standards everywhere. Italy and Hungary lack tea and coffee. The Hungarian tea ration allows individuals two cups of inferior quality a month. Italy, Hungary, and Switzerland ration flour, oil, butter, cooking fats, and sugar. Bulgaria has three meatless days a week, because German agents secure foodstuffs and repay in unwanted products, which Bulgaria is forced to accept, thus going hungry, as there are no ther markets open. In accordance with the Gevernment s order, Mondays and Fridays are meatless days throughout Hungary. Neither fresh nor tinned meat is available on those days in butchers’ shops and restaurants. The census of copper being taken in Italy for military purposes dooms many famous kitchen utensils. Only 221 bof copper will be allowed each family. Rumania at present has food, but train after train bears off produce westward, and an eventual shortage is inevitable. A message from Cernauti states that a train with 36 truck-loads of sunflower oilcakes and cellulose, bound for Germany, crossed the Rumanian frontier into Soviet-occupied Poland. Scandinavians are rationed. Denmark has instituted a voluntary 21b allowance of sugar a week, Holland allows lib for 18 days. WAR’S AFTERMATH IN SPAIN Spain illustrates the stark aftermath of a war. Tourists in Spain cannot be fed adequately, as the hotels are often without milk, coffee, butter, and sometimes bread. Whole Spanish towns are often without bread, flour, and milk for several consecutive days. Olive and orange groves and fields were laid waste by the civil war, with the result that the Government’s resources are now strained to the utmost to maintain communal kitchens. The most salutary realisation which curbs possible British self-pity is that of the appalling conditions of thousands of Polish, Jewish, and Spanish refugees. The Amsterdam newspaper, “Algemeen Handelsblad,” declares in a leading article that Great Britain's butter rationing scheme will be nothing short of catastrophic for the Dutch dairy industry. Last year Holland sent 70 per cent, of her butter exports to England, and the percentage rose to 80 during the first nine months of 1939. Bacon rationing will also have serious consequences in Holland, which at present is slaughtering 10,000 pigs a week for England. If this figure is halved, it will mean a reduction of one-eighth in the country’s slaughterings. EFFECT OF ALLIES’ BLOCKADE The German Official Wireless admits that the allied blockade has deprived Germany of coffee, cocoa, jute, and rubber, but it states that substitutes are available. “Germany’s peace-time economy was drilled for war requirements,” it states. “Her people have been educated to become true Socialists. Hence her marvellous start in 1939.:” Chile and Germany have signed a year’s extension of the temporary trade agreement between the two countries. It is not explained how they expect to trade in defiance of the Allied blockade. Because of the reduction in the domestic surplus, the United States Minister for Agriculture, Mr Wallace, has suspended wheat and flour subsidies, with a single minor exception.