AN ENEMY AT HOME

Te Awamutu Courier, Volume 60, Issue 4235, 24 January 1940, Page 9

AN ENEMY AT HOME

DANGERS OF WASTEFULNESS. “The winner of this war, as in the last, will be the side which has most food,” states the “Farmers’ Weekly” (England). “We are being urged to increase-the amount of food we grow to store supplies of food, and the navy is working hard to safeguard from enemy attack ships bringing food to this country. In spite of all this we have an enemy right on our doorstep which is destroying more potential human food than will any German U-boats or aeroplanes. That enemy is waste. Its attacks are spread over every county, every parish and every farm. Very often waste on a farm seems so slight that you hardly notice it. But when you consider that that same waste is probably going on on nearly every farm in the country, then you see how serious it is. The chief sources of waste in this country are disease and pests. Rabbits are by far the worst of the pests. They are said to cost us anything from 30 to 70 million pounds a year. Rats come next. They are reputed to rob us of from 20 to 30 millions a year. The three worst diseases are tuberculosis, contagious abortion and mastitis. Their cost is supposed to be about 15 to 20 millions a year. There are many other pests and many other diseases, and it is safe to say that, all told, they cost us well over a hundred million pounds a year.’ “While it would be unfair,” says the “Yorkshire Post,” “to fasten upon out bureaucrats the blame for the whole of the 42 per cent.. decline in United Kingdom exports that occurred last month, it is a fact that some important percentage of this steep falling away in trade, and therefore in employment and incomes ,is directly attributable to the operation of controls set up by the Government. What is more disturbing is the growth of evidence that restriction, standardisation, pooling and control are regarded as possessing virtues on their own account. This is the way to plan supplies out of existence, to pursue impoverishment, to sacrifice quality at home and markets abroad—in a word, to devote our energies to economic selfmutilation. The advantages to be derived from control must always be measured against the losses it may inflict, not merely on individuals, but on whole industries.”