BRITISH BAKERS IN REVOLT

Wanganui Chronicle, Volume 90, Issue 166, 19 July 1946, Page 5

BRITISH BAKERS IN REVOLT

REFUSE TO IMPLEMENT RATIONING SCHEME “WILL GO TO GAOL”

Reed. 6 p.m. London, July 17. Despite the penalties laid down for refusal to work bread rationing, 1500 delegates, representing 25,000 bakers in all parts of the country, at a mass meeting in London, carried a resolution declaring that the bread rationing scheme was unworkable and demanding its postponement. The delegates undertook to continue deliveries of bread ami confectionery as in Hie past without bread units in the hope that a simplified scheme might be introduced.

The resolution staled that in the event of prosecutions, the National Association of Master Bakers would appeal to all members for fpnds to meet the costs of tines.

It deplored the threat of the Food Minister (Mr. Strachey) of heavy terms of imprisonment and tines, and declared: "We feel we should accept the challenge in its entirety.” A Birkenhead representative, submitting the resolution, said there was no time for beating about the bush, and declared: “We shall all go to gaol.” A Bristol representative, moving a resolution, which was incorporated in the Birkenhead one. which was ultimately carried, declared: ‘‘Not one baker in Bristol is prepared to carry out the scheme. We are not going to do it. Mr. Strachey will have the prisons pretty full.” ■ * “COMPLETE REVOLT.” The chairman of the executive council of the National Master Bakers’ Association, reporting to delegates on a meeting of the executive earlier in the day, said: “We had very disturbing views; it is complete revolt against the scheme. We must fight until the day of reckoning, and we must get a postponement. We are pursuing Mr. Strachey, who has agreed to meet six of us for half an hour to-morrow morning.” The resolution was carried unanimously amid cheers. The Press Association says it moans that the bakers will deliver bread on July 22, when rationing is due to begin, without collecting coupons. A Labour Aiderman of Bristol proposed that the councils should be empowered to take over bakeries and work the bread rationing scheme. The secretary of the Scottish Society of Master Bakers said that Scots regarded the English attitude as reckless and ill-advised. Scottish bakers intended to do their utmost to work the scheme. In the House of Commons to-day Mr. Strachey defended a Food Ministry statement that the actual quantity of food consumed in Britain was only 7 per cent, less than before the war. Mr. Strachey said that that dr* not mean that each individual was eating 7 per cent. less. Some were eating considerably less, and others considerably more than they were able to buv before the war-

Thirty per cent, of housewives before the war had been rbfe to spend only fis a week on food. Rationing had brought the worst and best-fed groups nearer the national average.