LONDON IS VULNERABLE

Te Awamutu Courier, Volume 56, Issue 4054, 30 May 1938, Page 2

LONDON IS VULNERABLE

THE SPECTRE OF NATIONAL FOOD SHORTAGE. ‘‘During the war we had to get. the greater part of our food supplies from North America, because we had not got the shipping tonnage to go all the way to Australia and New Zealand to fetch supplies. What is the position to-day? First of all, we' have a bigger population than we had in the last war and a smaller merchant fleet; ships to-day are driven by oil rather than by coal, and the oil has to be imported, very largely; the growth of London lias been phenomenal since the War; we have had a continual concentration ef flour-milling for the food storage plants at the ports of this country; and, finally the danger of air attack has become far greater. In London we have an enormous congestion of population, we have a river running from the East, with docks and storage plants lying along it which are extraordinarily open to air attack. Should we be at war with a Power which threatened London, it would be practically impossible to get food into the Port of London.” —Mr Parker, M.P., in the House of Commons.