The Southland Times. TUESDAY, MAY 3, 1938. Wheat For Britain’s War Chest

Southland Times, Issue 23498, 3 May 1938, Page 6

The Southland Times. TUESDAY, MAY 3, 1938. Wheat For Britain’s War Chest

One of the Budget announcements which was reported to have caused surprise in the House of Commons was that the British Government had made purchases of wheat, whale oil and sugar to ensure that the stocks in the country should be maintained, at a level sufficient for the civil population during the „ early months of an emergency.” The strange thing about this step is that it should have been delayed so long. In the worst stage of Germany’s submarine campaign during the Great War there was enough wheat in Britain to last only two weeks. Even in normal times the storage capacity hitherto, has been no more than 10 weeks, and according to an estimate in a mercantile publication there was a period, last year, when the stock was down to a 10 days’ supply. This seeming carelessness is easier to understand when it is remembered that Britain has come to depend on her navy, almost as if it were an extra force of nature, adding a final condition of impregnability to an island home; and although the dangers of air attack have brought new fears and new ways of thinking, the old confidence remains more or less intact in the public mind. This confidence can no longer be shared in official quarters. Britain receives about four-fifths of her wheat supply from overseas. She is unable to follow the example of other European countries that, since the war, have attempted to become self-supporting, in wheat; but she has one great advantage in that she is able to meet the cost of building up a war chest in advance. In any systematic preparation of this kind wheat must always remain the first consideration. Jt provides the staple food of the people, and its deterioration is slow enough to make storage on a large scale a practicable measure. If adequate stores were in the country at the outbreak of hostilities the British Fleet would be free to concentrate its forces for defence, instead of having them widely dispersed along the trade routes. And finally, the knowledge that sufficient food supplies were available —even though they fell below the peace-time standards of plenty—would be an important influence in sustaining the public morale. It is true, of course, that food storage is not the only problem. A British Official Wireless message, printed on Saturday, stated that the Food Defence Plans Department of the Board of Trade had issued a report outlining the preparations now being taken to feed the nation in war time. “The aim of the department is to anticipate every important problem which a future food controller might be called upon to deal with during, say, the first six months (of an emergency).” The task might seem a formidable one, aiming at omniscience; but the lines of approach were clearly indicated during the Great War, and there must be many civil servants in London with a firsthand knowledge of actual conditions time of national crisis. This knowledge has .to be utilized in a system of distribution and control which must be sufficiently flexible to make the fullest use of past experience, and at the same time to adapt itself to the pressure of unexpected developments. That these plans are now being carried through with every sjgn of speed and thoroughness may suggest to outside observers that the British Government expects an early emergency. This may be the case. But it is probably wiser to see the Food Defence Plan as an essential part of the armament programme, designed partly as a precautionary measure and partly as an instrument for negotiation in European politics. If war comes, Britain will be ready to organize and concentrate her resources. And in the elaborate system of bluff and bargaining which seems to have become .the new tactics of power politics, a nation that seeks to impress with the outward signs of . strength must have no vulnerable places. Britain’s plans are partly an answer to the self-suffi-ciency measures of other nations: unless they apply to every phase of the nation’s life which might be imperilled in time of war they would be merely a gesture, expensive and futile.