STATEMENT BY MR. CLYNES.

HC Deb 06 June 1918 vol 106 cc1761-842

Motion made, and Question proposed,

"That a sum, not exceeding £900, be granted to His Majesty, to complete the sum necessary to defray the Charge which will come in course of payment during the year ending on the 31st day of March, 1919, for the Salaries and Expenses of the Ministry of Food."—[Note: £100 has been voted on account.]

The PARLIAMENTARY SECRETARY to the MINISTRY of FOOD (Mr. Clynes)

I am sure that all hon. Members will agree with the expression of regret that I want to offer to the Committee at the continued absence from the Food Ministry of my Noble Friend the Food Controller (Lord Rhondda). I understand that he is making substantial progress, but it is probable that for some weeks yet we shall not be able to have his services. I venture to say that he has served his country with very great distinction and with great success. Some have regarded it as an odd combination that a peer of the realm and an ordinary labourer should be asked to join together in such efforts as they could make in order to serve the nation at a time of extreme difficulty and stress. We find that our objects were the same and that our methods for obtaining them were substantially identical, and I can assure the Committee, if any assurance be needed, that personally I lament the absence of Lord Rhondda so much the more because I have felt that Labour has been able to work and act with him in a manner substantially to relieve the whole situation in this country. To that I would like to add the indebtedness that we feel for the services rendered in the Food Ministry by the staff of officials and the heads and the chiefs of Departments, who have with the greatest devotion and competence struggled to reach a solution and a satisfactory handling of the thorny and difficult questions which have been placed before them. The importance of the Ministry in relation to the conduct of the War is no small matter, because Britain has had to carry, as one of the Allied nations, unusual burdens — burdens carried not merely for the advantage of the population of Britain, but for the sustenance of the populations of the Allied nations. A great deal depended upon our being able, at least in some measure, to secure and to retain to the civil population of this country the confidence that its food supplies would not be so impaired or interfered with as to mean any risk either of famine or of serious privation, and in the discharge of this important branch of war work the Ministry has had to labour usually in the region of experiment, experiments having to be conducted under the stress of very urgent national and community needs.

Our first problem was that of prices, for as soon as any scarcity appeared it was natural that articles of food, in regard to the matter of prices, should travel quickly upon the same road of high prices as had already been reached by so many other articles in common use; and long before there was any serious shortage of food in the principal or staple commodities, the tendency to high prices in foods appeared. The Committee will recall that a great deal of unrest was manifested, and many of the demands which were made found their roots in the grievances relating to the high cost of living. We therefore had to take as the first branch of our work the fixing of prices, and that was done either by means of definitely settling what the retail price of a commodity should be, or by the other method of limiting the profits which any retailer, trader, or dealer in food could make upon the service which he rendered. That policy has been challenged to some small extent, but it has been justified by its success, and it is, I think, now accepted throughout the country as a just and sensible course of national action. It was natural that at a time when foods were scarce traders in food should yield to the pressure of the temptation of making enormous profits, and of reaping unusual rewards for the service which they were rendering. Traders, dealers in food, merchants, wholesale men, and retailers have on the whole fallen in loyally with the rather rigid conditions under which the policy of food prices has had to be applied, and with very few exceptions we have to offer our acknowledgments and our thanks to the trading community for submitting to conditions which are not only a departure from, the common, experiences of their trade, but conditions that were looked upon as almost totally un-English when they were first applied.

The Food Ministry has desired, and, indeed, has pursued it as a definite line of action, to work as far as possible through the ordinary channels of trade, but in many cases the Ministry has been obliged to set up organisations of its own to deal, for instance, with the great meat markets and with the supplies of margarine, of tea, and of other commodities. The operations of the Wheat Commission and of the Sugar Commission were centralised before the first Food Controller was appointed, but these organisations are under the authority of the Food Ministry. The operations of the Wheat Commission and the Sugar Commission have required constant and continuous intelligence work, and that has been carried through by our Food Commissions and by the aid of our local food committees, which now number roundly 2,000. Central control is a necessity if authority is to be maintained, and equitable conditions applied. This side, of the work, and the regulation of meat and milk products, has shown the greatest expansion in the present year. The finance division of the Ministry exercises a general supervision over expenditure, accounts, and costings, and it has its direct representatives in each of the divisions of the Ministry and in some of its branches.

The staff of the Ministry has been reviewed since the beginning of February by representatives of the Ministry of National Service, and no officer fit for general service in the Army has been retained without the consent of that Ministry. The whole of the clerical staff has now passed under review, and earlier exemptions are being periodically considered. The revision of the provincial staff has now been begun and will be completed as soon as the requisite information can be got together. As to the size and number of the staff, I will give to the Committee two or three figures. Some 900 men are engaged by the Ministry in responsible posts for administrative and for executive work, and for similar tasks we employ about 150 women. To these two figures, we have to add a considerable number of clerical and routine workers, making a total staff forming the headquarters machinery of the Ministry of 4,350. Of the total number of persons who occupy responsible or administrative posts about eighty of them are Civil servants, and eighty of them are voluntary workers. The rest are made up of business men of experience and capacity in regard to the businesses, trades, and foods with which the Food Ministry is concerned. I may recall the fact that when my Noble Friend the Food Controller assumed office about a year ago, the staff was but 400, so that in that time it has grown from 400 to 4,350. In the case of the provincial staff, the Ministry employs 2,339 persons, of whom 1,305 may be described as higher officials, and the rest come under the head of subordinate staff, of which the large majority are women.

Having settled our general policy of food prices, the Ministry considered that its most paramount, duty was to maintain, and, as far as possible, increase, the supplies of food in this country. Our success or failure will be judged by what we accomplish under that head. However excellent our intentions may be in other respects, if we fail to deliver the goods, the country will properly and naturally conclude that we have not succeeded in our efforts. The Committee may judge our achievements by contrasting the position as it was, say, nine months ago, with what the Committee well understands it is to-day. The position as to supplies of cereals is entirely different from what it was in the early summer, say, of 1917, and the prospect of increased supplies now is far better than at that time. In the case of fats the supplies of the various articles, such as butter, margarine, lard and other edible fats, have been carefully correlated, and the result is seen in the increase we have just been able to introduce with regard to the ration of margarine and certain other commodities. With regard to meat, after a period of considerable difficulty, foreign supplies are coming in large quantities, and the prospect of maintaining the herds and flocks at substantially the same level as last year may now be regarded as assured. So far as the future is concerned, we do not hesitate to say we can look ahead, not only with hope, but with a sound knowledge of the various sources from which the supplies of the different commodities may be anticipated, and with the anticipation that these commodities will be brought over to our shores.

I have at times had to answer questions in this House indicating on the part of some hon. Members a belief that we have interfered too much with the ordinary occupations and energies of those persons commonly engaged in trade in this country in times of peace. My answer to that view is that, good as the credit of an individual trader or merchant may be, that credit in war-time is far below the credit of the nation, and though we have acted as the buyer, we have not sought to act as the trader. I am certain that, in respect to obtaining great quantities of food the world over, as far as the world's markets are open to us, the name of Britain will go further in a deed or arrangement of purchase than the name of any other firm or trade concerned, however long established in this country. The Ministry of Food, then, is the buyer of these commodities. Its reputation and credit secure the quantities, and it then seeks to assist the flow of those commodities, through the ordinary channels of trade, until the consumer is reached. As far as actual foodstuffs are concerned, and as far as these can be distributed by the Ministry through the usual channels, the large staff engaged in this work incur, of course, rather heavy administration expenses, but I do not think that these expenses will be viewed in any grudging spirit, in view of the work which on the whole has been accomplished. The Ministry does not try to make profits on its work. It does try to avoid losses. It has not the motives of an ordinary trader, company, shopkeeper, or firm. Transactions in the way of purchase and sale have covered, during the time of the Ministry's existence, hundreds of millions of pounds, and, apart from the subsidies and the losses which are associated with our blockade policy, and for which, of course, the Food Ministry is in no way responsible, only a small sum is recorded as a net loss on any of the business that has been transacted. This loss has arisen in connection with our live-stock transactions, and the Ministry has taken steps to recover this loss, and any subsequent deficits, by a revision of meat prices. As far as there may be any other variations in meat prices, they will be due to the rise in the price of North American meat.

The losses incurred in the case of foreign fish supplies and other foreign purchases are not losses that can stand fairly to the account of the Ministry of Food, but have been incurred, as I have said, on account of the policy of war-time, and stand to the account of the Restriction of Enemy Supplies Department. The Ministry is not merely acting for this country. It is acting jointly with, and must act in constant cooperation with, our Allies, and therefore we have machinery by which the views and desires of the Allied countries, as well as our own, are made known. The country, then, does not stand alone in facing the food problem. We are only one in a family of nations, and we must all share in the foodstuffs which jointly we may be able to import. For over two years the Inter-Allied Wheat Executive has been purchasing all cereals, and distributing them in accordance with the needs of the Allied nations. More recently this system has been extended, and a Meat and Fats Executive deals with meat and bacon and other fats. In the near future, I am glad to say, it is probable there will be further developments under this head, and we shall be able, by Inter-Allied agreement, to prepare food programmes for all European Allies which will be framed by an Inter-Allied Committee, and carried out under the direction of Inter-Allied Executives.

The Committee may like to hear something as to our financial methods. The Food Controller has to obtain Treasury sanction for all operations which involve either actual finance, or which pledge the credit of the Ministry. In every Department there is an Assistant-Director of Finance, whose duty it is to consider every scheme put forward which involves expenditure, and submit it to the Financial Secretary in the form of a draft letter to be transmitted to the Treasury for their approval. It will be seen that we have not unrestricted facilities for spending the nation's money, and that effective checks are imposed. In all cases purchases are made by the agents of the Ministry in the countries of origin, after previous sanction by the Treasury. Considerations of finance and tonnage have thrown us mainly upon a single market— the United States—and I am certain that the Committee desire that I should express our indebtedness to America for the manner in which the whole people of that great nation have responded to the necessities of this country in regard to food. In America, as here, there is a system of food administration guided and directed by Mr. Hoover, who, I am glad to say, is likely to be amongst us in this country during the course of the next month. The procedure that we follow may be put under two heads. A requisition is submitted to the financial branch by each section of the Food Ministry. That requisition roughly states the estimated requirements for the coming month. Secondly, an application is at the same time made through the shipping branch to the Ministry of Shipping for the provision of the necessary tonnage, both refrigerated and otherwise. It is not merely that we have to make certain of being able to complete the necessary preliminary transactions; we must make sure of being able to carry the food to this country. We have at times been disappointed owing to causes arising from totally unforeseen and ungovernable conditions. Plain folk in this country say, as they possibly did in February and March of this year, that the blizzard in America, or the stress of the very severe weather they had there at the end of last year, had nothing to do with our food supplies. Those things had much to do with our food supplies. There was very considerable dislocation of inland transport and the upsetting of conditions on shore in regard to the transmission of the quantities of meat and other foods which were waited for in this country. Treasury sanction having been given for any estimated expenditure, instructions are cabled to the proper quarters, giving the particulars of the commodities which have to be purchased, with the necessary weights and values.

The purchases are usually made under contracts allotted by the American Food Administration, and the price paid under these contracts is the same as the United States authorities pay for the supplies for their Army and Navy. It is important that the Committee and the country should understand that these are the conditions and the price, and that we are therefore not subject to the influences and other effects of ordinary competitive trading conditions such as trading conditions are in times of real shortage. In respect to the allotments of the United States Food Administration other than under the contracts, these are purchased in the open markets at the best current price that can be secured. The larger proportion of purchases, however, is allotted to us by contract. The Finance Section of the Ministry, I hope I can say, is effectively supervised. Each of the divisions of the Ministry has an assistant director, as I have already told the Committee. He is appointed to take charge, and he is not only responsible for criticising on financial grounds any proposals put to him; it is also his duty to draw attention to matters of procedure or policy likely to involve unnecessary expenditure, or likely to suggest economies. The office instruction further states that in view of the heavy responsibilities of the various divisions, it is of vital importance that proposals or schemes should be subject to continual criticism, and the executive officers are therefore directed to give all the assistance in their power to the Assistant-Director of Finance, and, in particular, to see that, as far as possible, he is informed at an early stage of all proposals under consideration before they are formally put forward or sanctioned.

I hope I am not exceeding what is customary in quoting here the comment of the right hon. Gentleman the Member for the Rushcliffe Division (Mr. L. Jones), who quite recently as chairman of a Committee dealing with the matters of finance had to hear witnesses from the Food Ministry, and a number of representatives who had to explain to that Finance Committee the operations followed by the Ministry of Food. The right hon. Gentleman at the close of the discussion said: I was struck in reading your accounts—and hearing them—with the thoroughness of the system as set out in a memorandum, and you have shown us to-day that you carry it out as-far as you can. You seem to hare a very thorough grip over the expenditure at the Ministry of Food. It will be seen, then, that an accurate check is kept upon expenditure, although in a business of this kind, of this magnitude, where the bulk of the supplies are bought abroad by foreign agents, it is impossible to balance results with any degree of certitude at any given time, especially as consignments, as now and then has been the case, have been sunk on the way. The Committee will remember that the national demand that reached us, with perhaps the loudest ring, was when it was found in town, city, and even village, queues of the people were lining up at the shops waiting for food. My own view is that, to some extent, these queues were formed not because there was some shortage—or perhaps, I should say, rather a serious shortage—in regard to certain things; they were formed out of the natural fear that people had that unless they were first they would be nowhere—that they would have no chance whatever of getting their share. It is satisfactory to be able to record some measure of achieved success in regard to the policy pursued by the Food Ministry in abolishing the food queues. The shortage of meat and fats, which became evident directly after Christmas, was accompanied by those distressing features which I have tried to describe. The introduction of a national system of rationing of meat, bacon, butter, margarine, has had the effect of causing that practically, I think I might say absolutely, to disappear. It is estimated by the police authorities, who very kindly have sent us some particulars on this point, that before rationing was instituted 1,330,000 people were found in queues in the course of one week alone, As time went on, and our rationing arrangements began to take place, that number diminished, according to the figures, to a little over 20,000. So small did the number eventually become that the authorities concerned ceased to send us any reports, as really they could find no people in the queues.

4.0 P.M.

Similar information and evidence came to us, not only from the police authorities, but from the lord mayors of our principal centres, Birmingham, Bradford, Cardiff, Hull, Manchester, Newcastle, Norwich, and other places. These queues, they said, were diminished because of the equitable distribution of such quantities as were available, while by processes of "speeding up," which at that time we were able to devise, the quantities were increased. It is not too much to say that whatever were the shortcomings of the Ministry, either in the arrangements and apparatus for the distribution or increasing of the supplies, credit has been given to the Ministry for the fact that what has been done has had the result of making all share alike. Rich and the poor are to subsist on the same level. Money ceased to have the power of purchase, which, in the absence of any rationing system, it always would have in any country. It is this sense of equality that has gone far to restore the confidence of the community in regard to our food situation, and which has given a large measure of satisfaction in relation to the future outlook. This work has required a great deal of the closest personal attention, involving many irritations, on the part of food committees, and on the part of a large number of executive officers, and I earnestly express to them the sense of indebtedness which we feel at having joined with us in rendering such valuable services to cope with one of the most serious and acute food situations which this country has ever seen. We were criticised not merely as a Ministry of Food, but the Government was criticised because of one big plunge which it was alleged had been taken in regard to the price of bread, and on account of a departure alleged to have taken place in our established financial or fiscal principles.

Bread, it was said, ought not to be subsidised, but should take its place and its chance like any other article of food. My answer is that bread is a great stand-by and main article of food of the very poorest of our community, and it is not true that all the workers are enjoying good wages. There is still a large margin of very poor people who have not enjoyed advances of wages at all commensurate with the increased prices of food, and they feel very heavily indeed the burden of these high prices. Although we checked the ascension of those prices, and in some cases we were able to lower them, we have not given full remission to that poorest section of the community which must look to bread as the main article of food day by day. If for no other reason, it would have been good national policy to have spent these millions in order to give succour and support to that particular class.

The outstanding difficulty which we have to face in regard to a bread subsidy arises from the fact that the cost of producing bread varied to an enormous extent, not only as between locality and locality, but as between firm and firm in one town. We fixed the price of flour at such a level as would furnish a reasonable margin of profit to all concerned, except in an extremely limited number of localities. Four-fifths of the bread is made in one-tenth of the bakeries, but the statement that these large, efficient bakeries are reaping excessive profits is far too wide. The general public demand at present is for equality of treatment, and, in my view, it will be impossible at this stage for the Ministry of Food to revert to a system which would increase this disparity of price, since unevenness of price would be an immense source of labour unrest. The Ministry has been criticised in some quarters for its treatment of the inefficient bakeries. Certainly the subsidy would have cost much less, and the financial situation would have been eased, had all our bakeries been efficient, and had they been constructed upon modern lines; but had we set aside the inefficient bakers we should at once have deprived many people of their means of bread, and it would have placed too heavy a burden on the efficient bakeries, and made them correspondingly inefficient for the particular duties we were imposing upon them. We had to take the good and the bad alike, and apply a certain law of averages, which might give to some too great a gain, and withhold from others what they ought to receive.

I have heard, in this House naturally as well as elsewhere, at times move than playful comments upon the quality and colour of our bread. I hoar very different opinions as to the nutritive value of the bread as far as that might be affected by its colour and by the ingredients to which we have been driven. Doctors differ on these matters, and all I can say is that there is a well-rooted preference for bread as near white as we can possibly have it; but there are certain prejudices which we certainly cannot destroy or cure no matter what method we pursue. I can only say, in relation to these very natural aspirations and desires, that it is our wish to improve the quality of the bread. It is our belief that we can do so, and we are looking forward to the prospect of a very good harvest, not merely in this country but in America and Canada, and if our hopes be realised, then it may be taken as certain that the colour and quality of the bread will be materially improved.

Mr. HERBERT SAMUEL

Before the right hon. Gentleman passes from the question of bread, are we to understand that the Ministry are proposing to take no action on the Report of the Select Committee on National Expenditure, which draws attention to the fact that many millions a year are being spent in excessive profits to the bakeries?

Mr. CLYNES

That question is being very seriously considered, as I have tried to indicate. The question of the amount of the subsidy hinges on the efficiency of particular bakeries, and that is part of the problem which is having our closest attention. A word to the Committee on the subject of potatoes. Here again there was a national subsidy, but the amount of the subsidy, first mentioned as probably reaching some £5,000,000, has been enormously reduced by the increased quantity of potatoes procured by the subsidy itself, and by the con sequent effect upon prices that was produced by these increased quantities. The subsidy has been the means, and I say the main means, of having placed in the case of Great Britain an additional 100,000 acres under potato crop and in the case of Ireland the additional acreage of potatoes is 120,000.

The view was that this subsidy might cost us some £5,000,000, but as a matter of fact it is now certain that it will not exceed more than £1,500,000. That is a very welcome reduction, and in exchange for this subsidy we have this bountiful crop of potatoes amounting, I think, to an addition of something like 2,000,000 tons increase on the potato output of previous years. It used to cost about £5,000,000 to buy 2,000,000 tons of potatoes in pre-war times, so that for a subsidy of £1,500,000 we appear to have got by this means a weight of potatoes equal to the weight which it took £5,000,000 to buy before the War. I do not put that as a specious or unfair argument. The Food Ministry has produced the potatoes. I well know that we have had to pay for them, but my point is that the potato crop would have been considerably reduced had it not been for the stimulus of this £1,500,000 subsidy which immensely increased food production at a time when food was seriously short.

On the question of mean, I have to utter some rather dry sentences to express what I mean, but they are of some importance. The position is that we have eliminated all competition and all profiteering. Wholesale salesmen and retailers are acting as our public servants under fixed remuneration. Private, trading, it may be said, in meat has ceased, and nowhere is this so apparent as at Smithfield Market, where businesses have been pooled under our Board of Control. All the firms, I mean British, Colonial, and American firms, have accepted the necessities of the situation, and have loyally co-operated with the Ministry in carrying out this policy. The magnitude of this trade is seen from the fact that some 18.000 tons are required every week to supply the normal meat ration. At the present time this is made up of some 8,000 tons of imported meat and 10,000 tons of home-killed. We are now at the top of the curb with regard to our supplies of frozen meat. Cattle upon grass must, in our judgment, be allowed to mature before they are killed later in the year. The number of cattle which have to be killed to produce the required meat is estimated to be 2,000,000; the number of sheep 10,000,000, and the value of the trade is approximately £140,000,000.

The meat problem in a nutshell is this; We have to arrange that the required number of beasts and sheep shall be killed in 14,000 slaughter-houses and delivered, together with their proportion of frozen meat, to 52,000 retailers' shops through 2,000 local food committee areas, and this must be done at the right moment, or as near that as possible, in order to supply the demands of 40,000,000 consumers. It is not too much to say that the meat coupon is honoured as surely as is the British banknote. The trading expenses are paid out of the Central Livestock Fund, and this fund derives its income from the per head charge levied in respect of every beast and sheep slaughtered, and thus there is no charge or expense whatever falling upon the National Exchequer.

Our bacon and ham supplies from America have recently been very substantial, and that is a source of great satisfaction. We have been able to secure very large supplies amounting up to the 25th of May to 457,000 tons of bacon and hams. In the early part of the year the severe weather to which I. have already referred stood very greatly in our way, and shipments and transportation were delayed, and our bacon supply fell greatly in arrear. Our problem recently has been that of coping with the enormous weight of bacon which has reached our shores in the course of a very short time. These have been so heavy that indeed considerable difficulty was experienced in discharging the cargoes and in clearing them from the ports. The Ministry have aimed at building up reserve stocks of bacon and hams to be drawn on later in the summer and the early autumn, when arrivals will normally fall below the ordinary consumption.

These large imports of bacon have given rise to rather lively apprehensions that some of them will rot—that we shall not be able to get them away to their destinations, and that they will go bad and become unfit for human consumption. I can assure the Committee that, while we have been aware of this congestion, every possible effort which could be made in face of the labour shortage and the want of extraordinary appliances at the docks to cope with extraordinary conditions has been made. We have done our level best to prevent any possible wastage of food, and the Ministry has no record or proof whatever of any of this bacon having gone bad, or become unfit for human consumption. The Committee should also remember that even in ordinary times and under ordinary conditions we axe subject to wastage and loss through food becoming unfit for human consumption. I have had no desire to unduly reprove Members of this House who have put questions to me on this subject, but I should like all of us to guard against giving rise to any apprehension or suspicion in the public mind, which has no real foundation at all, that there is being retailed to them foods which are not fit for human consumption because, through our neglect or want of attention, they have gone bad. We are seeking to improve the methods of curing and packing, so that these difficulties may be overcome. Some demand has been put forward in certain quarters for cheapening the price of things in view of the large quantities available. That demand overlooks the fact that we have had to buy for the future, and that we could only lower the price at the cost of increasing consumption, lessening our future reserves, and incurring very considerable losses, which would have to fall upon the National Exchequer. We have no present intention, therefore, of lessening prices, though it is intended to issue an Order putting retail prices upon a more definite footing than, at present, so that the best cuts will be procurable at no more than 2s. 4d. per lb., but any general reduction in the prices of bacon merely because the quantities now are good is altogether outside the mind of the Ministry.

An article of food which at times has given us very serious concern is milk. We are now in the season of the year when milk may be regarded as abundant, and the situation is satisfactory. But, in order to safeguard the future, I have decided, after the fullest consideration, to meet the demand for an increase in the price of milk for the farmer by allowing an addition of 4d. per gallon as from June 10th until the end of September. This will add 1d. per quart to the price to the consumer. The decision is based upon reports from our local authorities. It has been reached after hearing the views of agriculturists, and after discussing the matter fully with the Consumers' Council, for the Consumers' Council, like all of us, consider that it is bad national policy to fail to attract a particular article of food by neglecting to fix a remunerative price-that will make it worth the while of those who have that article in their keeping to produce it. We, therefore, feel quite justified in the increase in the price which I have just announced, and I am satisfied that this will do something to maintain the dairy industry at a. satisfactory level. Another aspect of the milk problem is that of distribution. We have seen growing during war-time, and under the peculiar conditions which these days create, a combine, and, indeed, several combines, of the very greatest power. Combines in other articles of common necessity may be defended, but we can have too much of a combine in an article of food, especially during a war period, and in order to avoid unnecessary transport and overlapping of distribution I have accepted the recommendations of the Committee so ably presided over by the hon. and gallant Member for Plymouth (Major Astor) This decision to accept those recommendations has been unanimously endorsed by the Consumers' Council, after full discussion. It is agreed, therefore, that the Minister must become responsible for the wholesale collection, utilisation, and distribution of milk.

Sir J. SPEAR

Is that a war measure or is it to be the permanent policy?

Mr. CLYNES

I am not certain that I can speak for the Ministry of Food as to after-war conditions. We are dealing with urgent war necessities, but, in my view, should the job be well handled, and should it be seen that in this really precious article of food State control is of very great public benefit, a strong public demand will grow to maintain something like State control after the War.

Mr. T. WILSON

Does that mean that the retail dealer will be compelled to go round into all the side streets and not confine his attention to the main streets?

Mr. CLYNES

My hon. Friend is anticipating a section of the subject that I have not yet reached. I am speaking now of the wholesale distribution, because long before the milk gets to the retail dealer in the street it passes through the commercial hands of the wholesale distributor. We propose to assume State control of the wholesale distribution, and in the exercise of that State control we desire to see that the position of the present wholesale dealers in milk is not strengthened for the period after the War, and that any advanced value due to the action of the Minister is retained for the State. This side of the problem is now having our closest consideration. With regard to the point raised about retail distribution, I can only for the moment say that I think we must look more and move to our municipal authorities to accept greater responsibility in this matter than they have yet done. I am far from implying that they have not done immense service during war-time, and have not accepted very great obligations and duties with little reward. They have done their nation great credit, but the retail distribution of milk from street to street and from house to house is an urgent and important matter which might well be commended to them.

People in these days are deeply interested in jam as they are in fish and so many other things, and I must therefore ask time for a word or two on these articles. The Army has made and is making very large demands upon us for jam, which has become a most important article of food in the Army, as it has also among the civilian population. Practically the whole of this year's fruit crop must be reserved for the jam manufacturers, and therefore there is very little prospect of any appreciable quantity being available in the ordinary way of consumption as fresh fruit. We have: been able to arrange for the whole of the 1917 bitter orange crop of both Spain and Italy to be placed at the disposal of the jam manufacturers for conversion into marmalade. The output of the jam manufacturers is now considerably larger than in pre-war years, but as the Army requirements are two-fifths of the entire quantity, it is inevitable that the supplies available for the civilian population should be severely limited.

There is no article of food the price of which it is more difficult to fix and to control than fish. The men in this branch of food production deserve the highest possible praise. They are facing extraordinary risks, including sometimes the chances of the submarine, as well as many of the rigours of the sea that are common to them in their daily life, and we have wished to avoid in any way discouraging the production of fish by placing upon it a price which would not make it worth the while of those men to undergo these privations. We find, however, that the tendency has been for the price of fish to travel too high. The increased quantities produced in the last month or two have in certain kinds of fish checked the price, but we are anxious that in this article the public should be protected, and the closest attention is being given to it by the Ministry.

Margarine and oil form a section of the Ministry's activities which can be dealt with in a sentence. I think what I have to say under this head will not pass without appreciation. The control of oils and fats has become one of the most important and intricate of the Ministry's duties and of its trade operations. All important oil seeds, nuts, kernels, vegetable, and animal oils and fats, are either purchased by the Ministry abroad, or are requisitioned by us on arrival here. Between twenty and thirty different raw materials are involved under the head of oils and fats and of margarine. The most important finished product, of course, is margarine. As many as twelve different branches of industry are affected in one way or another, and each has its representative association or committee to assist the Ministry in the allocation and distribution of the raw materials and of the semi-manufactured articles. It is really a striking development of the Ministry's activities that the increase in margarine manufacture in this country has been so considerable. The productive capacity of the margarine industry has increased four-fold during the War, and we are now entirely independent of foreign imports. Imports from Holland supplied more than half the consumption of the country in pre-war days, and in the last two months these imports have entirely ceased, because we no longer need them. The centralised distribution of margarine through our margarines clearing house has also effected very great economy in the way of transport and other directions. Security in respect of some articles of food rests upon storage space, and I want to give one or two figures as showing what has been done under that head. Our storage capacity measured in cubic feet has increased, roughly, from 32,000,000 to 35,000,000.At present there is under construction and a long way towards completion an additional 5,500,000 cubic feet.

Mr. CHANCELLOR

Tons?

Mr. CLYNES

No; cubic feet. I am speaking now of cold storage space, and I am giving the figures as expressed in cubic feet. I can give to the Committee the assurance that by the end of this year our cold storage space will have increased by more than 25 per cent. upon what was its pre-war capacity. We have now in existence 535 national food kitchens. We are negotiating with local authorities at the present moment for the establishment of an additional 500. A special section of the Ministry is engaged on this work, and is receiving very able assistance from some of the local authorities. I should like, however, to say that there is cause for some disappointment at the absence of response to our approaches from certain centres with regard to national kitchens. We may not want them now or during the summer or autumn, but they will be of the greatest possible assistance, where they are established, to supplement our winter supplies. They ought not to be taken as supplanting or crushing out any existing food agency. They can be made supplementary to the café, to the hotel, and to the small humbler centre where the working man goes to got his food. They have contributed very materially towards helping households in the supply of meals, where the wife has gone to munition work or is engaged in other manual labour because of our war condition. So I should like to see an even greater response from the local authorities to our approaches to them for the more general extension and establishment of national kitchens.

Mr. T. WILSON

Can the right hon. Gentleman say how many of these kitchens are being run at a very heavy loss?

Mr. CLYNES

I am not aware that any one of them has been run at a very heavy loss. Common experience shows that all that is required is to run them without a profit. In some few instances, those who have run them have not been able to avoid making a slight profit, but they are not intended to be money-making businesses. Even if a financial loss were involved, I should not regard that as being out of place. The kitchens will be a very material supplement to the other energies of the Food Ministry in supplying food to the country. I should like to express here a word of thanks to the Consumers' Council, a body which has acted now for the past half year within the Ministry as a very material and helpful advisory body to those of us who have had to assume these responsibilities. It is a mixed body, consisting of co-operative representatives, a large number of Labour men and a sprinkling of men and women invited to join the council as representing the great non-organised consuming public. It meets weekly. It is a critical body, as we expect it to be. Its personnel is drawn from bodies who had indulged very freely in criticism of all food policies before the Food Ministry was established and even after it was established. It was proper that we should say to these people, "If you can do this work better, if you have advice to give, come forward and help us."

There is something more in these days for the critic to do than criticise. If he has any constructive capacity, the country can, afford him an outlet for his energies. In that way we have brought together a considerable number of the most competent men and women, who know the problem, not theoretically, but from many branches of experience.

The function of the Consumers' Council is to put the consumers' point of view before the Ministry of Food, and to protect the interests of the consumers with regard to prices and distribution. It meets every week in London. It reviews the more important food orders before they are issued to the public or take effect. It acts in a purely advisory capacity, but its opinion carries very considerable weight, and no Department of the State would care to issue an Order against the express wish or opposition of the Consumers' Council. I have spoken of its personnel, and I may say that, in the main, those who compose this council are men and women who had, as I had, a definite view of what was the plan of Labour, and what ought to be the plan of the country with respect to solving the food problem. We have been able, by means of discussions with the Consumers' Council, to graft upon that plan of Labour a general national food scheme which has tended to give a great deal of relief, if, indeed, no more than that can be said. This national policy is now generally accepted as the right and proper policy of those who are looking after the interests of the consumers in connection with the Consumers' Council.

Finally, I would like to express a word of thanks for the very great help I have received myself from all parties and all Members of the House during the time that I have been engaged in this work. The hardship of the work has been immensely lessened by the very great encouragement I have always received. We have had our days and nights of anxiety, because we felt at the beginning the importance of the place occupied by the Ministry of Food in relation to the War, and the great work it was necessary to do in order to maintain our civil population at a point of efficiency and ability to discharge the great industrial and other duties which the War has imposed upon them. I am not at all hinting or believing that everything is settled, or that all things are all right and will be if we are left alone. I am quite conscious of the very severe privations and hardships which are being suffered by large sections of the community. Nothing has been more welcome to us than to find how willing this undisciplined British public has been to submit to hardships, to undergo privations, and to accept rigid terms of discipline, when they have seen that they are in the national interest, and that all are being treated alike for the common good. We may be inclined ourselves to claim too great credit at times for what we do, but if we cannot give credit to anyone for statesmanship in regard to anything so far contemplated, let us reverently give credit to the men at sea who day and night and week by week are facing all the rigours and distresses of an ocean life, in order that food may be brought to our shores for the civilian population and the Army as well. They have not received, perhaps, the need of thanks due to them for these immense services they are discharging, always under ever-increasing difficulties, for the relief of the population of these Islands.

I welcome criticism, in the confidence that it will be given with the desire not to impede, but to assist in the work in which we are engaged. We have never believed that we could do much that would be popular, but we do desire; to avoid doing anything that would be harmful or unnecessary. We want to let, as far as possible, the flow of trade go its usual course, if that flow be consistent with the needs of the community at large. If it is not, there must be checks, and there must be interference and immediate action by the Ministry of Food. Our country has made very great sacrifices, and it can look back now with amusement upon the rather foolish speech of the German Emperor made some nine months or so ago, when our activities as a Food Ministry were beginning. At that time the Kaiser delivered a special address to an assembled multitude of those whom it is not too much to describe as the submarine murderers of that nation, and he impressed upon them the necessity of persevering in their submarine work, believing, as he indicated, that if they could be goaded on to further efforts the community in these Islands would very soon be at the mercy of the great German Power. If we compare nine months ago with to-day, setting aside whatever or whoever may be responsible for the results, we can look with every confidence into the future, with every satisfaction with what has been accomplished so far, and with the certainty that no efforts of the submarine, however savage or serious they are as a departure from civilised standards of warfare, will so menace the civil population of this country as to incline them in the slightest degree to recede from the great purpose in which they are engaged.

Mr. LOUGH

I am sure the Committee will have listened with considerable pleasure and interest to the most able speech delivered by my right hon. Friend. Everyone will particularly reciprocate the hope he expressed that his Noble Friend (Lord Rhondda), the Food Controller, would soon be restored to health. The right hon. Gentleman gave us the most interesting statement yet delivered in the House in regard to this most important question of the control of food. I am glad to be in a position to agree with almost everything my right hon. Friend has said to-day. That is in contrast with many speeches I have made on similar occasions before. But for one little sentence which slipped out at the beginning of his speech, for which reason I will not regard it too strictly, I should think everybody in the country would be able to agree with him. The sentence to which I refer was that in which he said that the chief business of the Food Control Department had been the fixing of prices, and that the necessity for this arose from the fact that traders had yielded to temptation. He hinted and implied that the high prices were due largely, if not mainly, to the traders having yielded to temptation. I desire on their behalf to repudiate that entirely. Immediately afterwards my right hon. Friend himself acquitted the traders of any action. The high prices during the War, of which we have had one illustration this afternoon, are due to different causes. On the whole, I believe that distributors throughout the country have discharged the duty they owe to the country in a most patriotic way. The single example given us in the course of the right hon. Gentleman's speech with regard to prices is the case of milk. Here, my right hon. Friend has been making what I think is a mistake for which for ten months he has been severely criticised in this House, namely, recklessly fixing an unremunerative price. He has admitted that he has done that during the month of May and down to to-day, the 6th June, and that now he has had to fix the price at a figure 33 per cent. higher than he fixed in May. He is quite right in fixing it at the present price, but that is not consistent with the suggestion that the high prices were due to the greed of the farmers and to the traders having yielded to temptation in the time of war. Apart from that single sentence, I should like to take up one or two points referred to by my right hon. Friend. Before I do so, I should like to ask him a question. We were all interested to hear the exact numbers of the large staff of the Food Control Department, but my right hon. Friend did not say anything about the local staffs; he only mentioned the staff which exists in London. When he replies on the Debate, will my right hon. Friend give the Committee some idea of the number and, if possible, the expenses, not only of the central staff, but also of the local staffs of the Food Department throughout the country?

Mr. CLYNES

I will repeat the figures. The staff numbers 2,339, and of that number 1,306 may be described as higher officials.

Mr. LOUGH

Are these numbers included in the 4,300?

Mr. CLYNES

No.

Mr. LOUGH

Then I did not catch the numbers, and I am glad to have had them repeated. Now we come to a sentence of the right hon. Gentleman with which I am completely in agreement, and which illustrates the fact that he has learned something since he commenced to address himself to this subject. One of the most delightful features about the right hon. Gentleman is that he is open to learn, and that he is willing to modify some of the opinions that he expressed earlier, when he is nicely persuaded with regard to them. He said the Food Control Department regarded it as its paramount duty to maintain supplies. That is an entirely new expression of the duties of the Food Control Department. Their duties, as expressed by Lord Rhondda and himself hitherto, have been to restrain prices, and it was in connection with that that they get into so much trouble and caused so much difficulty that we constantly appealed to the right hon. Gentleman, in this House, to devote his attention to the larger aspect of the question, and to be careful that he did not limit supplies too much by the restrictions which he placed on the ordinary laws which govern them. Then he said, look at the position nine months ago. I should like the Committee to do that and to remember that nine months ago the Government was in power, and had been in power for nine months, and, whatever the position was, the Government was responsible for it. Speaking broadly, what was the situation? An exactly opposite policy to all that has been laid before the Committee this afternoon as the aim of the Food Controller at present has been for a considerable time pursued by the Ministry. The Committee will remember the 24th of February in last year, when we had one of those dramatic entrances of the Prime Minister to make one of his rare speeches He gave us a whole list of articles, which afterwards was the cause of great distress in the country, the supply of which he cut off, ninny of them quite needlessly. So, from February, in the early period of the Government's existence, for eight or nine months they pursued a policy which they have now had to modify, and it is because that policy has been so completely modified that I am able to congratulate my right hon. Friend so freely this afternoon.

The right hon. Gentleman took all the credit for dispersing queues, but who caused the queues? The Government. The first queues in the country were sugar queues, because the stock of sugar had been allowed to run down to four or five days' supply. We have heard from the Chairman of the Royal Commission on Sugar, whom I have constantly congratulated for bringing in large supplies, that in May, 1917, there was scarcely a week's supply in the country. The Government had prevented importers bringing in the sugar, and when they themselves were charged with this heavy responsibility a year ago they forgot their duty and did not bring it in, and that was the reason we had queues for sugar. With regard to tea, China tea was all prohibited, and in the period I have referred to the quantity of Indian and Ceylon tea was severely restricted. Java tea was excluded altogether, and has been ever since, and so the stock ran down from 130,000,000 lbs. in January to 30,000,000 lbs. in September—scarcely thirty days' supply. Then we had tea queues, caused by the Government, and although it is not the fault of the Food Control Department, the Committee ought to remember that the whole difficulty which they take so much credit for putting an end to was caused by themselves by neglecting these important duties which they are now discharging. Then my right hon. Friend said it was part of their policy to interfere as little as possible with the merchants. Is not that a striking change in the tone of the Food Ministry? We have been protesting against their interference with the legitimate course of supply in this country persistently for six or eight months, and now we have him saying it has become the definite policy of the Ministry to interfere with them as little as possible. There was one article he mentioned—margarine—in which he said very great difficulty existed. We had it definitely stated to a Committee, of which he was a member, that the policy of the Government prevented the second largest manufacturer of margarine—I think he is the largest now—the owner of the Maypole Dairy Company—from producing 1,000 tons of margarine a week. They cut down his supply by that quantity eighteen months or two years ago. Therefore, even as far as margarine is concerned, the scarcity that then existed was caused by the policy of the Government.

The right hon. Gentleman then went on to contrast the way that importation would be done and goods would be bought abroad by the State and by the merchants. He gave us one reason only for suggesting that the State would carry out the work better. He said the credit of the country was a great deal better than the credit of any individual. The pleasant picture which he has presented this afternoon is presented to a nation which has been contrasting it all the time not with chaos, not with scarcity, not with high prices, but with a well-ordered system where prices were lower than they were in any part of the world, where food was more abundant than in any country, and which we have had carried on by voluntary effort and by the great work of its well-organised system of importation and distribution. As to the credit of the Government compared with that of individuals, I would advise him not to be too complacent upon that point. I am connected with one or two businesses which have now have heavy dealings with the Government, because the article has been taken over entirely by them. It is extremely hard to get a cheque out of the Government, and you can never get money punctually paid. Punctuality of payment has been one of the great props of the business, and one reason why it has achieved the high position in which it now stands, and we cannot possibly get the Government to toe the line and to carry out its transactions in the creditable way in which the simplest and most ordinary merchant in this trade always did. Therefore I would advise him not to be too complacent about this vague thing which he calls the State doing everything better than the individual does. He would, perhaps, fare a great deal better if he got the assistance of the individual from time to time.

There was another point, on which the Committee entirely agreed, upon which I want to address a note of warning to him. He said it was the object of the Ministry not to carry on its transactions so as to make a profit. He has constantly said that. It is a point to which he ought to direct more attention before it repeats it too frequently, and he ought in some way to account for extraordinary incidents which have been brought to his notice by myself and members of the other House, one or two of which I will recall to him. We see traces of the most extraordinary profiteering on the part of his Department. It is true the thing may be balanced. He may be trying by making a huge profit in one direction to cover his loss in another, but that ought to be explained to us. I would remind the Committee of a statement by Lord Leverhulme, whom everyone will recognise as a high authority. Speaking at the annual meeting of the great company over which he presides, which is one of those business concerns that is a credit to the country for the way it has been conducted for many years, he said that oils and fats had been taken over from him and sold back to him next day at a profit of £95,000. What became of that £95,000? It is all very well for him to tell the Committee grandly that they do not make a profit, but Lord Leverhulme accused him in that sentence of a profit of £95,000 on one transaction. He went on to say that his ships had been taken over, and that the freight on ships carrying essential oils from Africa had been raised from 40s. to 240s., and he was managing both a year ago when the freights were at the low figure I have mentioned, and now when the freights have reached the larger sum, his own profit being made out of these extraordinary freights. There is a feeling through the country that in many of these transactions huge profits are being realised by the Ministry. I will give him other figures for which I am responsible myself. I was told in reply to a question that the large contracts of the Food Control Department for frozen meat were made at 6½d. to 7½d. a lb. delivered here, and that the contract price wholesale on the Smithfield Market is 1s. 1d. a lb. There is a huge difference between 6½d. and 1s. 1d. My friend who told me this is largely engaged in the trade, and he said there must be gigantic profiteering. While we all approve of the principle that the right hon. Gentleman has laid down, it conflicts with many of the facts with which I myself and others are familiar, and these matters ought to be explained before such statements are made on behalf of the Ministry. I take again the case of beans. Beans were taken over. We have a Bill before us to enable the transaction to be completed. They were taken over at £37 10s. a ton. The price fixed by the Ministry was £59, and from £10 to £20 a ton profit was realised on a vast quantity. I want to know where this money went.

I will finally take the case with which I am most familiar of all—tea. The fixed price at which they are buying it is l0d. a lb. It is a great deal too much for the tea they are getting and the way they are doing it, because they do not understand the way to buy it, and the nation has to pay the penalty for it. There are vast quantities lying in Ceylon and Calcutta. There is a distribution every Tuesday in London. There was one this week of 15,000,000 lbs. at 1s. 4d. a lb. They charge the same price for tea of any quality, and so they are taking every precaution to get a very bad quality, because it is no good to send it fine as they get no more for it than if it is common. This leaves room, though there are abatements of 1d., 2d., and 3d. a lb. for a huge profit on tea, and we are at some loss to know where the money goes. I approve entirely of the principle that the right hon. Gentleman has laid down. It is the principle on which his great Department should work, and it is the only principle upon which he can retain the confidence of the country, but these cases want explanation. We heard of another case with regard to beer, where a huge sum, £80,000 I think, has been obtained in connection with a duty that the Food Control Department improperly imposed on beer. Where is that £80,000? Where are all these huge sums? Some account ought to be furnished. The Committee ought to insist upon it.

Mr. CLYNES

In reference to what the right hon. Gentleman has just stated, may I mention the fact that the £80,000 was willingly paid by brewers, who asked to be allowed to brew an extra quality of beer and who also agreed to pay an extra 25s. per barrel, which made up the sum of £80,000? That has all gone into the Exchequer.

5.0 P.M.

Mr. LOUGH

That has happened, I imagine, because one or two hon. Members raised the question here. I do not think that it was intended originally that it should go to the Exchequer. We did not hear anything about the £80,000 on Budget night, or, indeed, of any other sums being handed over to the Exchequer. But whether it be the Food Control Department or the Exchequer, it does not interfere with my point. You may be making millions out of tea or other articles, or out of shipping, and the House of Commons is entitled to know where that money is and where it matures to the credit of the nation. This House should demand that an account be laid before it, and, if what the right hon. Gentleman says is true, then the House can see that the moneys are paid to the credit of the State. I should like to call attention to another point, to show how easy it is for my right hon. Friend to slip into grandiloquent statements which are not entirely borne out by the facts He spoke of rationing just now. As anyone could have foreseen, both rationing and the fixing of maximum prices were necessary steps. I never maintained it was wrong to take either of those steps. What I did urge was that in taking them the Government should be guided by experienced people. Had they done that, we should have had a well-devised scheme, instead of a loose and careless system. The right hon. Gentleman has declared, with regard to rations, that all share alike. Do we? He had not had his scheme in operation for one month before a claim was made for double rations for those who do heavy manual work. He agreed that they should have double rations. I remember that my right hon. Friend the Member for Deptford (Mr. Bowerman) asked about compositors— were they not engaged in heavy manual work? I always looked upon them as employed in a sedentary occupation, but the right hon. Gentleman agreed that they should have the increased rations, and everybody, men, boys and women, who speak smoothly to the right hon. Gentleman manage to get this increased ration. We do not, therefore, all share alike, and, as a matter of fact, at this moment certain classes are enjoying a considerable advantage.

That brings me to another question— that of the huge bread subsidy. My right hon. Friend justified that because of the poverty of a certain portion of the population. But he quite forgot that, in the matter of this subsidy, he was giving away everybody else's property. Everyone benefited by this subsidy, and the result was a huge and wasteful expenditure, no care being taken to confine the subsidy to the really necessitous. I was very glad to hear the right hon. Gentlemen promise an improvement in the quality of bread. I think the business of putting offal into bread has been carried too far. There has been very little economic management in it, and it would have been better for human beings if they had got better bread, and if more of the offal had been given to poultry, or horses, or dogs. This offal has been put too recklessly into the bread. I congratulate my right hon. Friend on his announcement that steps will be taken to improve the quality of the bread, and I only ask that they shall be taken as quickly as possible. I believe there is great danger to the health of the nation in the low quality of the bread which is produced in many places. I have heard from the doctor of one of our largest lunatic asylums that the death rate in asylums has more than doubled during the last twelve months, and he attributes it to nothing but the reduction in the quality of bread. It is very strange that that should be so, but still it is one of those questions which this House should take to heart, and I hope it will encourage my right hon. Friend to bring about the improvement as quickly as he can. I have tendered my right hon. Friend a good many congratulations recently; I hope he will put them against some of my criticisms. May I make one or two suggestions? I wish to be practical in my remarks. Why not have two qualities of bread? I know that to mention two qualities of anything, whether it be of bread or tea or cheese, is anti-democratic. The right hon. Gentleman laid down that principle two months ago, when he was giving us a less carefully prepared speech than the one he has delivered this afternoon. He was then dealing with cheese. I had complained that large quantities of bad cheese had been put on the market as the result of the establishment of a single price, and my right hon. friend suggested that one way out of the difficulty was to eat the bad cheese first and then good cheese would be forthcoming. That is a principle which I for one do not care to follow. I prefer to have a good article even if only a smaller quantity. I consider that the whole principle of deteriorating and depreciating the quality of food is a mistake. Why not provide some fine white bread for those who like to pay for it? Free it from the subsidy. I understand the mind of the right hon. Gentleman is open to suggestions. I trust he will consider that one. He mentioned the subject of potatoes, and he made a remark at which the whole Committee laughed. He referred to the subsidy on potatoes, and told us that the Government had been successful in getting out of its difficulty in that respect at a cost of a million and a half sterling. I do not think he expected to get off quite so easily. But, he asked, what had we got for that subsidy? He answered his own question and said that we had got 2,000,000 extra tons of potatoes this year. That was what the House laughed at. I venture to think the nation has got no advantage from it at all, but only the people who grow the potatoes. I hope that my right hon. Friend will understand that these criticisms are made in no unfriendly spirit. I congratulate him on the developments he has accomplished. I think if he will go on in the same way we shall at least have had one good Minister of Food before many months have passed.

I would like to say a few words about the milk problem. On a previous occasion my right hon. Friend was an unreformed character with regard to the question of the treatment of milk. He fixed the price at 1s. per gallon for the month of May, and 1s. 2d. per gallon for June. I have a little interest in one of the best creameries in Ireland, and I can therefore speak with some experience. I tell the Committee that Is. was an impossible price for milk during the month of May. Grass does not improve until the end of May, and no one can produce milk at that price. My right hon. Friend was asked to reconsider the matter, and he promised to appoint a Committee to look into it. But it is not until this day, the 6th June, that we get the result of that reconsideration. 1s. 4d. is now to be the price of milk, and the new price is to come into operation as from 10th June. I want to ask the right hon. Gentleman if a promise were not given that when he fixed a higher price for milk it would be retrospective as from the 1st May? I wondered at the time how it would be possible to carry out such a promise, because the farmer would already have got his 1s. per gallon for his milk, and he is a silent person who looks at what he gets rather than to the shifty promises of Ministers. I therefore wondered how the right hon. Gentleman was going to keep his promise. [Mr. Clynes indicated dissent.] I am speaking in the recollection of the Committee when I say the answer we got from the right hon. Gentleman was that a Committee was considering the matter, and that when the higher price was agreed upon it would be made retrospective from the 1st May.

Mr. CLYNES

I have no recollection of any promise whatever of the kind being made on behalf of the Ministry. It may have been mentioned in some Committee, but I had no knowledge of it.

Mr. LOUGH

Very well, I have no bitter feeling with regard to this price question. What I want the Committee to recognise is that the farmer is only getting 1s. per gallon up till the 10th June, and every gallon produced is and has been a loss to the farmer. That is what makes milk scarce. The fixing of unremunerative prices alone has created the difficulty. Yet that has been the policy pursued by the Department up till this date. I am entitled to make this point against the right hon. Gentleman. He has admitted that 1s. is a wrong price. He is raising it by 33 per cent. But that does not acquit him of the charge of bad treatment which he has meted out to the producers of this necessary of life during the last three months. I wish to make one or two constructive suggestions to my right hon. Friend. He has declared that if anybody can help the Ministry of Food it has a receptive mind, for it has a great work to do. We must all admit that it is a great work. I want to suggest to the right hon. Gentleman that when Mr. Hoover comes over here from the United States he should remember that Mr. Hoover is the most successful Food Minister that the War has produced. He has managed to maintain far better relations with the distributors and producers in America than the Food Minister has done in this country. I suggest to my right hon. Friend that his Ministry should try to adopt some of the principles which Mr. Hoover has adopted in the United States with such extraordinary success. He told us this afternoon that we all shared alike, but there is a bitter feeling among tradesmen and distributors that they all are not sharing alike. They think they are not being treated in the same way as the co-operative societies. I think I remember some words used by the Minister as to co-operative societies being in a position of advantage. If, however, he is going to abide by the principle he has laid down this afternoon, and if he will give effect to it, and see that all do share alike, he may produce a great improvement in the administration of his Department.

I want to ask the Committee for one moment to revert to this question of prices, and to bear in mind the difficulties which have been produced by the arbitrary fixing of prices by the Department. The prices have always been either too low or too high, and the difficulties created have been due to the fact that they themselves have fixed the prices, as in the case of milk, instead of getting the opinion of people familiar with the article dealt with. Perhaps I may mention the case of tea. The right hon. Gentleman made a promise with regard to China tea. The Ministry fixed an arbitrary price at 2s. 8d. per lb., at a time when there was a great deal of China tea in this country which had cost a great deal more, and, as a result of the arbitrary fixing of the price, that tea has been locked up ever since, The matter has been brought before the Ministry on several occasions and promises given that steps should be taken in regard to it. Action was expected both in April and May, but nothing has yet been done, and the result is that all these months a large quantity of most excellent tea has been kept locked up. The Ministry themselves fixed a price which they have admitted was a foolish one, so far as this tea is concerned, and they promised a modification. I hope the right hon. Gentleman will bear in mind that promise. There was another promise made—that the Government would import China tea. They have not done so. Surely China tea ought to have been brought in as well as other kinds of tea, particularly as it was definitely promised in this House! My right hon. Friend speaks of maintaining one quality of tea. Why should there be only one quality now produced in the country when God has given us a hundred? I want to tell the House the rule by which the right hon. Gentleman secures that this one quality shall be maintained. I have explained already that all tea is sold at the same price. Then there has been a provision that some of the common tea shall be mixed with all the others, and thus the quality of all the tea has been seriously deteriorated and injured by the policy of the Department. That is a matter that wants some little consideration. We have constantly brought it before him. I believe I am getting right on this question of tea about October next, but why should we have to drink bad tea for six months because we have a stupid Department when there are plenty of people in this House who can tell them what they ought to be doing from day to day?

I have mentioned cheese. I wonder whether the right hon. Gentleman has ever eaten cheese at luncheon in this House. Will he allow us to have a little good cheese? This is a great country for producing cheese, and if the right hon. Gentleman will withdraw his rule that only one price and standard shall be produced—which is only an encouragement to the producers to give the worst quality, because they will not trouble to make a good quality when they get no more for it than the poorest article produced—he will do some good. In the case of tea, it is leading to a very common kind of tea being produced. I think that now he has entered on the path of reform he might consider some of these points and put matters on a better footing. I always look at the Orders from the Ministry, and I received one yesterday morning setting out the price of offals. It is a very unpleasant subject, one to which I have referred before, and I trust the Committee will excuse me for doing so again. I thought that the business in offals had been left free and that they could be bought without a coupon. It appears now that the price is most strictly limited, and I have here eighty-eight kinds of offals, and the price that is to be paid, wholesale and retail, for every one is set out. I see that there is a different price for cattle offal if it is home-killed and if it is imported. You pay 3d., I think, for a home heart, or 2½d. if it is a foreign heart. Is not this going into too much detail? How can all these prices be known to the people? I think that in this flood of orders that is being poured out into the country the Ministry has something which it might endeavour to improve.

Sir F. BANBURY

And save some paper.

Mr. LOUGH

And save paper as well. There is another remark I should like to make about Order No. 509. This allows local committees, set out on the other side, to make any regulations that they deem fit. It says that the respective control committees in the respective districts may make rules for the distribution arid consumption of the articles of food specified respectively in the separate resolutions of the said committee conducting the said scheme. That, as I understand it, allows the local committees to make any rule with regard to the purchase, distribution, and consumption of commodities which the Food Controller himself may make. I would ask whether the local committees have this power of making any orders they please referring to price and distribution in their localities? It seems to me to be a very extraordinary extension of the powers of the Food Controller. I understood that tea had been rationed at 1½ ozs. per head in many districts for the last few months, but how has that been so if it is not rationed? Can these committees make any arbitrary rules they please without consulting the Central Committee? I would like to ask a question or two about another very important article that has been mentioned, namely, bacon. The history of the bacon ring is really very extraordinary, and my right hon. Friend displayed some irritation at questions that were asked in this House. He said he would not reprove Members too seriously for asking questions about distribution of food and the deterioration of it in quality. Perhaps I may respectfully remind it that it is not any part of a Minister's duty to reprove Members of this House at all. The position is exactly the opposite. It is the Ministers who ought to be reproved by Members, and it is this object we had in view in asking these particular questions.

One of the largest importers of bacon told me that during the hot weather in May 15,000 boxes of bacon which had been on one of his ships were lying on the open quay in one port of this country. That was referred to my right hon. Friend, and he denied it. There are constant stories of the deterioration of food, especially of bacon, and I am glad to hear his assurance that there is nothing in them. At the same time, I do think he might look into the matter further. There is one other point about bacon. The arbitrary system of distribution which the Department has carried out has led to the wrong kind of bacon going to certain places. I have a letter from a bacon merchant pointing out that the thin lean kind of bacon wanted in London cannot be obtained in London at all. You must have the fat bacon, which I believe is a favourite article in agricultural districts. You get the sort of bacon wanted in agricultural districts, in Ireland, and in Scotland, in London, but you cannot get what London particularly wants. I assure my right hon. Friend that this matter of the feeding of the people of this country is a very delicate matter. It has been exceedingly well done in this country long before his Food Control Department was heard of, and there are plenty of people capable of doing it very well now. The feeling of importers, merchants, and distributors is that they know how to do this but are pushed aside by an impetuous Ministry which does not understand what it is doing. If he had secured their assistance more than he has done a great many of the problems that have worried the Department would be much more easily solved. I put down a reduction of this Vote, but although it did not occur to me at the time, it has come back to my mind that some important new dignity was conferred upon my right hon. Friend on Monday last. I do not think it would be a very graceful act for me to move a reduction of his income at a time like this. If by chance the Motion (were carried by the Committee it would restrict my right hon. Friend in his efforts to maintain this new dignity, and, therefore, on the whole, I think I will content myself by giving him the few words of advice I have ventured to offer, and will not trouble the Committee with any Motion.

Mr. DAVID MASON

The right hon. Gentleman who has just sat down has made some criticism of the very interesting and lucid speech we have just heard from the Parliamentary Secretary to the Ministry of Food. I do not propose to follow him in his criticism, but I must say that as I listened to this really amazing speech of the Parliamentary Secretary I asked myself if he really grasped what we were engaged in doing. My right hon. Friend has touched on this question of the elimination of the private trader, and the right hon. Gentleman the Parliamentary Secretary said that the British Government were now almost the sole buyers of the foods he mentioned, such as ham, bacon, bread, and so forth, and of other large imports which were formerly in the habit of being bought through private traders. He gave as one of his reasons for this action on the part of the Government the matter of British credit, and said that that was one of the reasons why the gathering of all things imported into this country was an advantage to the country. Like my right hon. Friend, I very much doubt it, and while the right hon. Gentleman is able, of course, to give us a very interesting speech, and he carries out this particular part of the administration of his Department with ability and faithfulness, I think the House is entitled to ask where we are going, who pays, and what this all involves. Is it advisable, while we recognise that a certain amount must be done through the State in the interests of the War, to congratulate ourselves on this action and to extend it any more than it is absolutely necessary?

I wonder if the right hon. Gentleman ever considers who pays for all this vast trade on which, and the ease with which he is able to purchase, he congratulates himself Of course he is able to purchase easily, but there are other immense advantages in allowing private traders still to retain the goodwill of their businesses. The idea of a great Department conducting the trade and commerce of the country cannot go on in peace-time, and does the right hon. Gentleman think that private traders will be able easily to recover their trading goodwill and connection? It is so easy, when you have unlimited powers and when we have, as I understand will be the case shortly, one of the largest Votes of Credit. Why should we have any limit to the Vote of Credit; why should we not have an unlimited one? It is easy to congratulate yourself on being able to supply all these things when you have unlimited powers and unlimited credit, but let us realise what we are doing. How does the right hon. Gentleman pay for his liability? He told us that the Ministry was now not only acting for this country, but for our Allies. I should like to ask him whether the British Treasury, the British Government, or this country, is liable for all these debts, or does he offset them by selling partly again to our Allies? Would it not be far better, as was suggested by the late Chancellor of the Exchequer, when we are borrowing money for carrying on our trade operations for our Allies, to purchase their food supplies direct from the United States instead of through the right hon. Gentleman?

Mr. CLYNES

It is a very important point, otherwise I would not intervene. What I said was that while it was necessary for us to act singly we acted also as a family of nations, and there was an Inter-Allied Committee which arranges the programme when it is necessary to secure food for the Allies. The Allies supply for themselves, but in co-operation with others. Competition amongst ourselves ceased long ago.

Mr. MASON

I understand that when the Allies buy, so far as the transaction is concerned, it is a direct transaction with the United States, and there is no liability on us. I am pleased to have that assurance. The right hon. Gentleman was not quite so explicit on that point. The right hon. Gentleman said that in making these purchases he had to get Treasury sanction, and that there were financial experts who were very careful as to giving that sanction. There, again, I wonder if the right hon. Gentleman appreciates the liability that he is piling up by these enormous purchases! It is all part and parcel of this South Sea bubble of inflation of credit, by which an enormous trade is done. That trade is largely based upon credit, and the right hon. Gentleman is merely a part of the machine in carrying out the transaction. What I am anxious to impress upon the right hon. Gentleman is that he need not necessarily congratulate himself upon this unfortunate position in which he is placed. It is not an advantage, but a disadvantage, to this country that we should be eliminating private traders and using British credit for the purpose of these supplies. I believe that it is embarrassing, and is likely to lead to great embarrassment to our trade. I do not suppose the right hon. Gentleman is at all distressed by the amount of supplies he is piling up, and the enormous excess of imports over exports, which is accentuated and stimulated by the fact that you have only a Government Department to deal with. Does he know that the present rate at which he is buying, buying blindly and wildly—I do not mean that he does not use every possible care in his purchases— is piling up an adverse liability, and on the present Board of Trade figures it will show probably at the end of this year anything from £700,000,000 to £1,000,000,000 of a surplus of imports over exports? Then he lightly comes down here and congratulates himself on a position which will eventually embarrass this country or any other country which indulges in it.

We cannot go on indefinitely piling up supplies of bacon and ham, etc., and getting our local people to have their municipal kitchens, although that enables the right hon. Gentleman to come here and say that he will always be able to give us supplies. Of course he can. He has simply to dip into the Treasury. He is not indulging in the usual methods of trade, with corresponding exports. He is not a trader in that sense. Is it not the case that this inflated balloon of credit is brought about in this way? The Treasury establish a credit in the United States or by issuing a loan here. That, of course, creates a great demand by swelling the deposits in the bank and by orders for these commodities, which the right hon. Gentleman is only too willing to supply, and he finds that he has no difficulty in shovelling out bread, ham, beef, and other commodities which he purchases from the United States. He goes to the United States, and the United States, dealing with him not as a private trader but as the representative of the British Government, says, "Of course we will supply you with an unlimited amount of bacon, with an unlimited amount of bread and butter and everything else." What the right hon. Gentleman must bear in mind is that this country will have to pay for it. The night hon. Gentleman may congratulate himself upon this easy method of conducting trade, but, after all, this country will have to pay the bill. When he purchases bacon or butter from the United States, the Treasury is issuing Treasury bills on the American market at 6 per cent. every week, and, of course, the United States and Mr. Hoover take care that these supplies are paid for by the United Kingdom. We ought to know what we are doing from day to day. I do not wish to reflect upon the right hon. Gentleman; I have the highest respect for him personally, and I do not desire to detract from his ability or assiduity and faithfulness to service; but any hon. Member placed in his position and possessed of a moderate amount of intelligence and ability—hon. Members reflect in the main the ability and intelligence of the community—and having an unlimited credit could, of course, conduct an enormous business.

We listen to the amazing story which the right hon. Gentleman has told us today—this sort of fairy story of the British Isles handing over its business to a Government Department, and we vote, as we often do, with hardly any demur, vast sums of money which are adding to our debt from day to day, but at the same time we ought to realise what we are doing and why we are doing it, and if there is any hope of some day bringing this thing to an end. I do not wish to reflect upon the right hon. Gentleman's management of his Department or on his courtesy. We all recognise the attention he gives to any cases which we bring from our constituencies and the care he devotes to the administration of his Department, and I yield to no one in my appreciation of his courtesy and assiduity; but I wish to draw the attention of the Committee to the amazing tale to which we have listened, and to bring home, if I can, something of the seriousness of the position. I want the Committee to realise that a great deal of goodwill, individual energy, and business acumen of many traders is now lost to the service of this country, and if this is prolonged for a very long period—God forbid that the War should go on much longer—we shall have to face the loss of credit and ability on the part of our traders who cannot get back to that high position which has built up the greatness and prosperity of this country.

Mr. SHERWELL

I regret that compulsory attendance at a Committee upstairs prevented my hearing the statement of my right hon. Friend. There are one or two matters with which I desire to deal which were not included in that statement. May I respectfully suggest that the right hon. Gentleman should try to save the ordinary citizen of this country and especially the ordinary housekeeper from the rather considerable confusion which now results from the frequent alteration of the Regulations of his Department. I have made it my business to study the various Orders issued by his Department, and I confess that if it were my destiny in life to have to arrange the affairs of even a small household of limited means I should find that my own intellectual powers, which the hon. Member for Coventry has placed upon a higher plane than we should like to place them, would be inadequate for that extremely serious task. If the Department could see its way to look a little further ahead, and not be quite so precipitate in the publication of its various Orders, a good deal of unnecessary confusion and bewilderment would be avoided.

There is one question of a general character. It has always been a matter of regret to me that this House, which after all is ultimately responsible for the conduct of this Department, and must assume responsibility for every detail of rationing that is authorised by the Department, has never yet been informed as to the expert authorities upon which the rationing Regulations of the Ministry depend. I have been anxious to know for some time what is the expert authority upon which the Ministry depends in deciding the allocation of meat for the various grades of the population. I ask that question advisedly, because I am impressed by this fact, that the principles and methods upon which the Ministry has been proceeding in regard to the distribution of meat represent a complete inversion of everything that has been authoritatively laid down for the last fifty years. The Ministry of Food has proceeded upon the assumption that sedentary workers require less meat than outside workers. I want to know the scientific authority upon which that Regulation is based. I happened to have the misfortune many years ago to study this question pretty exhaustively, and I was astonished to see this principle laid down in a definite Regulation by the Ministry of Food. I do not suppose the right hon. Gentleman has time to inquire, but if he will instruct his Department to inquire they will find that every authority has laid down this un challengable proposition—that the sedentary worker must have food that can be easily assimilated. There is no food which can be so easily assimilated as meat, but the Ministry of Food has proceeded upon the assumption that the sedentary worker, whether man or woman, can be kept with less food. The probability is that in reference to the food question the administrative authorities treat it as if it were solely a chemical question, and the expert authorities upon which the Ministry so largely depend are chemists. Everybody knows that the food problem and the question of food assimilation, and also the question of the particular forms of food required for different elements of the population, do not turn upon chemical considerations alone, but they turn much more largely upon physiological considerations—in other words, upon the ease with which a particular type of food can be assimilated. I suggest that the Department should reconsider this matter. The right hon. Gentleman will find authoritative precedents, and some very illuminating Reports from the old Privy Council authorities which in the 'fifties and the sixties had charge of the health arrangements of this country, and in a particularly interesting enactment made by the order of the Privy Council in which it is clearly laid down that the outdoor worker—the man who has the advantage of fresh air—can easily assimilate and digest forms of food which are fatal to the sedentary worker. It is due to this House that we should know the expert authority on which the various Regulations are founded.

There is one other point which was, parenthetically, referred to by the right hon. Member for Islington, and that is, Why should we not have uniformity in the Regulations that are enforced upon the population? It appears to be the case that in Scotland for some months past there has been compulsory rationing of tea, on a basis not as I understand the right hon. Gentleman suggests, of 2 ozs. per person per week, but on a basis of 1½ ozs. per head per week. Anyone will recognise that that is a perfectly impracticable basis. While other parts of the United Kingdom have not been rationed, the whole population of Scotland has been rationed on that basis. I submit, as the right hon. Member for Islington submitted, that it ought not to be in the capricious power, however well meant, of any committee or any district council or any delegated authorities to compel an ordinance of compulsory rationing which has not the. authority of the central Ministry of Food in England.

The Ministry of Food has added to its responsibilities recently the very difficult responsibility of regulating the price of beer. It has settled that no beer of a gravity under 1030 shall be sold at a lower price than 4d. a pint. Then the rule goes on that for beers of a specific gravity of from 1030 to 1035 the price shall not exceed 5d. Then the Ministry of Food says, "That is the extent of our compulsory powers. All beer above 1034 specific gravity shall be sold for any price you like to ask." The result is that people are being charged to-day as much as l0d. for a small bottle of stout, a half-pint of stout, which is intrinsically greatly inferior to the beer that was sold before the War. Hon. Members will realise how serious it is that the Ministry of Food should allow this great measure of profiteering against the beer consumers and the working classes of this country. If it proceeds to regulate the price at all, it should regulate the price for all grades of beer. What is happening now is that the trade is getting exorbitant profits for the beer above the low gravity of 1034. Prior to the War the whole of the beer produced in the United Kingdom averaged 1052 and 1053 specific gravity. Hon. Members will understand how monstrous a thing it is economically that the trade should be allowed to ask the prices which are now charged. If the right hon. Gentleman wants to avoid trouble in this matter, he should regulate the price of all grades of beer, if he regulates the price of any one of them. I make these observations in a sympathetic spirit but I call attention to these matters, as I believe that they are of the utmost importance.

Sir F. BANBURY

I would like to endorse the remarks of the hon. Member with regard to the numerous Orders which have been issued by the Food Controller. I know that some of them have been necessitated because the original Orders were found to be wrong in conception or to have operated badly, but I earnestly endorse the request of the hon. Member that a little more care should be taken in future before these Orders are issued. It is very difficult at present to know exactly where we are. We are continually finding that orders are being changed. The majority of people at present have very great anxiety, and some of them are very hard worked, and it is nearly impossible to keep pace with the numerous Orders that have been continually issued. I will not go into the question whether or not 10d. is too much for a half-pint of stout, though I should have thought that the higher the price the better the hon. Member would have been pleased. But I should like to endorse the request made by the hon. Member, and by the right hon. Member for Islington, that local food committees should not be authorised of their own initiative to make Regulations in regard to the rationing of food. The result of that will be that numerous different Regulations will be made in different localities. If food is to be rationed it should be rationed by a central authority with some knowledge of what is going on and should not be left to local committees who, however good they may be, are influenced by all sorts of local considerations which have nothing whatever to do with the question. In addition, the result would be that if you happen to live in one locality you will get so much and if you live in another locality you will get something else.

Reference was made yesterday in this House to an anomaly with regard to the use of paper and on this point may I ask would it not be possible to decrease the number of forms which the unfortunate citizen at the present moment is required to fill in? I spent that part of last Sunday, when I was not at church, in filling in three forms, two for the Ministry of Food and one for the Ministry of Agriculture. The two forms for the Ministry of Food had it carefully written in three places that these returns must correspond with the returns made to the Board of Agriculture. The Ministry of Food got in first. I got their form before I got the form from the Ministry of Agriculture. Therefore I could not for the life of me make out what this meant because I had had, about three months ago, a form from the Ministry of Agriculture, which I filled up neatly, and which asked for certain information as to the number of cattle and so on which I had. I thought, "How can I make this form correspond with the last form which I sent to the Ministry of Agriculture inasmuch as I have sold some cattle since in accordance with the request of the Ministry of Agriculture that you should endeavour to get cattle fat in May and June and sell them?" I have done so, and I could not make my form correspond with the form which I sent to the Ministry of Agriculture before I sold the cattle. That confused me very much. So I wrote a lengthy explanation on the form, wherever I could find space to do it. That was not very easy, because no room was left on the form for filling up these explanations.

I did that on Saturday night before I went to bed, and then I got the new form from the Board of Agriculture, which was to be filled up before the 4th of June. So then I had to write out on the vacant spaces on the Ministry of Food form an explanation that I had made a mistake because I had not got the Ministry of Agriculture form when I filled in the Ministry of Food form. Whether I am liable to a severe penalty for having written over the form I do not know, but if so I hope that it will not be enforced. The communications were practically but not quite the same. There was a question on the Ministry of Food form asking how many chickens I had reared in 1916. That was not on the Board of Agriculture form. I could not answer that. I do not know and I could not find anybody on my farm who did know. With that exception the inquiries were very nearly the same. Why could not the Ministry of Food save these papers and ask the Ministry of Agriculture to give them a copy of the return or let them look at the return or, vice versa, let the Ministry of Food receive the return and let the Ministry of Agriculture look at it. It is very troublesome to be filling up these forms continually. It is a great waste of paper, and it must take up a considerable amount of the time of the staff in circulating these forms and in perusing them when they are sent back.

6.0 P.M.

Major ASTOR

I desire to refer to the Orders of the Ministry in connection with the price of beer, because I believe that the intention of the Government may be defeated by the way in which the Orders are being carried out. One Order was that the average gravity of the total output of any brewery shall not exceed 1030 degrees. The other Order settles the prices of some of the classes of beer and has a definition of Government beer. But the continuation of brewing has been justified by the Government in order to provide the working classes with their customary beverage which should be of a fair quality and sold at a reasonable figure. It was because it was found that owing to the fact that prices were not regulated and qualities were not defined last summer that there was a considerable amount of unrest. The unrest was largely due to the fact that consumers knew that the quality of the article they were drinking was bad and the price was excessive. Everybody admits that excessive profits were made during last year. It was in order to regulate those that the Government decided to define what I call the workman's beer and to fix the price. It was ordered that beer between the gravities of 1030 and 1034 should be sold and called Government beer at 5d., while beer below 1030, with a minimum of 1010, is to be sold at 4d., irrespective of whether the gravity is 1010, 1015, 1020, or 1029. It is quite obvious that if you can produce a light beer of 1015 or 1020, you are going to make a very much bigger profit, if you sell it at 4d., than if you produce beer at 1029 for the same retail price. Therefore the inducement to the brewer of fourpenny beer is to make a beer, which I may call wash because it has no authoritative definition. Then there is a third beer, which, because it is not defined by the Ministry, I may call luxury beer. No limit is put on its gravity or its price. Therefore, its production cannot be justified on the ground that it is beer for the working classes, and it may be sold at any price, at any profit, at any gravity; it is, in the past, this high quality of beer that has earned a very justifiable reputation, but it is not a. justification for the continuance of brewing at the present moment. Brewing is continued to supply working men with beer of a fair quality at a fair price. The profits made on different qualities of beer depend really on how the brewer and the retailer arrange their output. They are not compelled to produce any given quantity of fourpenny or fivepenny, or of what I call luxury beer; they are not compelled to produce any given quantity of workman's beer at five-pence. They may arrange their output as they please, so long as the average is not over that required. As you regulate your output, so you can regulate your profits, but that does not necessarily carry out the intention of the Government, which is to give decent beer to the workmen at a fair price. I am going to take extreme cases, because they will better illustrate my point. I take an authorised output of 100 barrels standard gravity brewed by each of four brewers.

The first one brews the whole of his output as Government Beer, sold at 5d., and the retailer and the brewer between them get a total of £1,100. The second brewer gets his average by producing eleven barrels at 1010 and eighty-nine barrels at 1040. The first beer is sold at 4d., and the 1040 beer is sold at 8d. The total obtained for these 100 standard barrels is £1,460. The third brewer varies his proportions, and produces sixteen barrels at 1010, in order to get an average, and, having produced that amount of beer, he converts the other eighty-four barrels into 1049 beer, which he can sell at 1s. a pint. That brewer, with the same authorised output, is able to obtain £1,800. The fourth brewer may produce nineteen barrels at 1010, and eighty-one at 1055, which I would really call extravagant luxury beer, for which at present prices he can get 1s. 4d. That brewer and the retailer, for the same amount of standard barrelage, namely, 100, using the same amount of raw material as the man who got £1,100 for his whole output of working-men's beer, sold at 5d., would be able to get over £2,000 by making some "wash" and the rest luxury beer at 1s. 4d. I have given these extreme cases only as a way in which I can properly illustrate any point, and make it clear to any business man that the brewing of decent beer for the working man at a fair price is being evaded. In fact the present Order is an inducement or temptation to the trade to evade it. I only mention this, not by way of criticism but rather by way of caution and warning. It is quite obvious that the only way to carry out the original' intention of the Government is to standardise beers and to fix all prices for beer. There might be one price for light beer and another for bitter beer; or else what is good enough for the soldier and is sold in the military canteen ought to be good enough for the civilian. If the Government fix that as a maximum, they would, in fact, be carrying out their intention, and would be giving the working classes a better article than is now being obtained by them at a worse price.

I wish to turn to another subject. I am very glad to hear from the right hon. Gentleman that the Ministry of Food have accepted the recommendations made to them by the Committee of which I had the honour to be chairman, namely, to take the control of the wholesale distribution of milk. I think it is very important that should be done. There are two problems in connection with milk. One is to maintain the pre-war supply so far as possible, though it may be difficult to do that, because there is not always enough food for the cows, nor is the food which the cows now receive as nourishing as it used to be before the War, while labour is less efficient, so that the average yield per cow tends to become lower. The second point we have to bear in mind, having maintained, as far as possible, an adequate supply, is to see that the milk is made available among those sections of the community which most need it. As regards maintenance of supply, for the last two years we have been told that there was going to be a milk famine, that there would be no more milk in the future, that the famine had actually begun. Milk is not an article the supply of which you can increase or turn off by the turn of a tap, and those prophecies have remained prophecies. There is difficulty in guaranteeing a supply of milk or fixing the price a long time ahead. Anybody who has any practical experience of dairy farming or of food production realises how extraordinary is the difficulty. What the Ministry of Food should try to do is to endeavour to increase the amount of milk supplied in winter. We have recommended that the farmers, instead of, as has so often happened in the past, try to make what appears to be excessive profits in the summer, to balance losses in the winter. It is far less easy to make a profit on winter milk production, when there is a natural tendency to a shortage of milk. We have also to consider, in connection with milk production, that cheese and butter are correlated to it. It has been the deliberate intention of the Government to fix the prices of cheese and butter, so that it should be to the advantage of the farmer to make these instead of milk, in the spring and summer, when there is a flush of milk, and when there is no danger of milk shortage. In fact that he should make cheese to put by and keep for the winter. The difficulty in fixing the price is apparent, and at has had to be done by guesswork.

It is extremely difficult to arrive at the exact cost of producing any agricultural article. We are trying at the present moment to analyse these costs and get definite information and data. If anything can be done to induce farmers to keep more careful accounts and scientific data it would be to their own interest, because I am perfectly certain that the public are prepared to pay a fair price, if it can be justified. The farmers, it must be remembered, have responded in a most patriotic way to the appeals which have been made to them. Only those engaged in dairy farming know the enormous difficulties there are owing to shortage of labour, the difficulty of obtaining nourishing food for cows, home grown food having to be given instead of concentrated food, and, in these circumstances, I think the country ought to be truly grateful to the farmers for the way in which they have responded to the appeals made to them. It is a fact that they have had to alter their whole outlook connected with the method of feeding cows, running their farms, and carrying on their businesses.

As to the more immediate point which concerns my right hon. Friend, namely, the control of the wholesale distribution of milk, when you have got your supply you want to distribute it evenly and give it to those sections of the community which most require it. There was not a national shortage of milk last year, but there were serious local shortages. The great tiling has been to know where the milk was produced, where it went, and where it was consumed. In tins uneven distribution of milk adults of one district obtained plenty, while in another children could not get enough. That is one of the reasons why it is suggested that the wholesale distribution of milk ought to be controlled. The other is that next winter, if there be a serious shortage of milk, which I do not anticipate, then that milk should be available for children. When so many articles of food are rationed there is always a temptation on the consumer in making out his dietary to turn to the unrationed article, and there has always been the possibility that adults might turn to milk and take more than is in the national interest. Therefore it was most important to control the distribution of milk. The Government have issued a scheme of priorities, setting out a scale of milk such as they consider is necessary and desirable for children. If there is only a limited amount it is desirable that an indication should be given to the authorities and others responsible of the amount of milk which should be provided in their area for children. The third reason why we recommended control was that if the Government were responsible for the collection and distribution of milk they could convert such proportions as could be spared into cheese and butter. It is most important that now, during the flush season, we should be laying by stocks of cheese which may be available next winter. It is because of that that I am very glad my right hon. Friend has accepted the recommendation which we made some time ago that the Government should control the wholesale distribution of milk. The result that I hope will follow will be that it will be available where needed, that it will be available for those classes that require it most, and that the best use will be made of the milk. I should like before sitting down to bear testimony, which is evidenced by the thin attendance to-day, to the success of the Ministry. No more eloquent tribute could be paid to the Minister and his Department than the thin attendance in this House to-day.

Sir J. SPEAR

Might I ask the hon. and gallant Member before he sits down whether he proposes that there should be a flat rate for the payment of milk, seeing the great diversity there is in the cost of production in different localities?

Major ASTOR

That is a very difficult question to decide. It has been examined at different times by the Ministry. At the moment we are going into it again to see whether there should be differential rates and, if so, where they should be paid and how the administration should be carried out. That is being gone into very carefully.

Mr. ANDERSON

I agree with the hon. and gallant Member that the somewhat languid interest in this Debate is itself a testimony of honour to the Ministry of Food, because it is quite clear that if things were going wrong from the standpoint of the Ministry there would certainly be a much more vigorous Debate here than has been displayed this afternoon. The Debate to-day has devoted itself both to the broad policy of the Ministry and to particular questions and particular food commodities, and in regard to the wider question of policy it is agreed that the Ministry must strive after two things— first, that the Ministry of Food, in conjunction with other Departments, shall do its utmost to maintain production at home and the imports of food from outside, and that unless food is available necessarily the best schemes in regard to distribution and the like will utterly break down. In the second place, the Ministry of Food has got a duty in regard to distribution itself. It has to see to it, for example, that the food available is distributed on something like an equitable basis as between family and family, as between town and town, and as between county and county. In the third place, the Ministry of Food has a duty to see that there is regulation of prices, so that whilst the interests are paid adequately for the work they do, the public shall at the same time be safeguarded against exploitation, which is specially easy owing to war circumstances and conditions.

There are hon. Members in this House who preach a policy of leaving things alone and who believe that it would be far better if the Ministry of Food would not interfere in any way, but would leave the whole question of food distribution and production to the ordinary interplay of economic forces. I think that that is not a defensible position at the present time. I am convinced of this—and we have had evidence of it during these three or four years of war—that this question has got to be dealt with by the Government, and the only point is that it should be dealt with on the wisest possible lines, on broad, sane lines of policy, and that is absolutely essential if the economic state of this country is to be safeguarded and if the gravest social discontent in the country is to be avoided. State action in itself is neither good nor bad. You have got to apply two tests to it: first, as to whether there is an evil to be dealt with; and, secondly, whether the remedy that you propose is one that will bring about the desired result; and, therefore, I think that is to some extent the reply to those who object to the issue of Orders and the like on the part of the Ministry of Food. If you leave things to take their town course there will be no need for the issue of any Orders, but if you are trying to regulate food prices, food production, food distribution, then from time to time it will be necessary to issue Orders giving instructions and directions, and these will have to be repeated as circumstances change, for the policy to-day might not be the policy that is most desirable three months hence, and consequently it is rather a counsel of perfection to say that Orders should be always the same Orders, seeing that in the very nature of things the circumstances under which the Orders are issued are bound to alter. At the same time, it would be desirable that these Orders, as far as possible, should be simplified, that they should not be needlessly multiplied, and that they should be easy to read and understand by the plain person. I think that these are improvements that might be brought about so far as the Ministry is concerned.

I am sure that it is now seen by Members in all parts of the House that intervention was necessary in regard to this question. We have had instance after instance of how various interests were making very huge and entirely unwarrantable profits out of the food situation in war-time. We had a memorable example brought to the knowledge of the House of how one firm of millers in one year increased their profits from £89,000 in 1914 to £367,000 in 1915. Well, it was quite intolerable that that sort of thing should be allowed to continue. You were bound to have serious industrial discontent if it had continued, and therefore I think the Ministry of Food has acted wisely in trying to regulate these prices and to secure a greater measure of social equity. Certainly, so far as Labour policy is concerned, we have consistently urged this course on the Government ever since the outbreak of War, and we have always pleaded that the various interests who are engaged in the production and distribution of food should be fairly paid for the work they do, and that side by side with that there should be protection for the public against the excessive charges; and I believe that to be a wise and a just policy. Organisations like the Workers' War Emergency Committee have put forward proposals again and again which have been partially adopted by the Government, and gladly adopted by the Government, and just in proportion as these proposals have been adopted the situation has become much easier, and popular discontent on this question has been very much relieved, and that is the situation at the present time.

Take, for example, the question of rationing, which has been mentioned repeatedly to-day. It was advocated for many months before it was taken up by the Government—for at least twelve months—both in this House and in the country. No one to-day questions the success of the rationing experiment. The feeling of unfairness has been greatly modified, the economic strength of the country has been maintained and increased as a result of rationing, and in my view the situation would have been stronger still if the Government had had the courage earlier to adopt this particular line of policy. Therefore, I wish to add my testimony to that expressed by other Members both to Lord Rhondda and to the present Parliamentary Secretary, to the Ministry of Food for carrying out a wise and a statesmanlike policy in regard to this food question. They inherited many difficulties at the start, and they were faced with many obstacles. They have not by any means hammered out yet a perfect policy, and many other improvements and changes will have to be made, but they have already got rid of very considerable difficulties indeed, and I think their hands ought to be strengthened in trying to serve, as I believe they are trying to serve, the public interest. I heard the charge made in this House that they are unduly hard upon the interests in the way of regulating and controlling profits and so on. I am bound to say that I do not myself see any tremendous signs of the particular hardship. When I read the balance-sheets of the various companies that are concerned in food distribution, it seems to me that they are still doing fairly well. I read a balance-sheet yesterday or the day before published by Messrs. Liptons, Limited, who are a distributive firm very largely dealing with food products. Before the War they were hardly able to make a profit, and very often were quite unable to declare any dividend at all. In 1914–15, the financial year in which the War came, they showed a profit of £80,000 and, I believe, paid no dividend that year. In 1917–18 this firm showed a profit of £374,000 and declared a dividend at the rate of 12½ per cent., so there is no particular sign there, at least, that the limiting of profits has had any very adverse effect on the financial situation of a firm like that. On the whole, although there is still something to be done in this direction, the food situation is being much better handled than it was, and I am quite sure of this, that even if the Ministry make mistakes, which no doubt they will make from time to time, they will readily be forgiven if there is a feeling that they are trying to get on with the work and to put the whole thing on the best possible basis.

Reference was made, I think by the hon. Baronet who represents the City of London (Sir F. Banbury), to the fact that sometimes conflicting Orders are issued by various Departments. I do agree with him in this, that in my view there is to-day far too much Inter-Departmental jealousy and overlapping. I am sure there is, and very often, under forms of external politeness to each other, you get a kind of smouldering warfare going on between these Government Departments, each Government Department very often playing for its own hand, and very often working against some other Government Department, or anxious to restrict the activities of some other Government Department. Perhaps a question comes up about fish, and then at once you get a rival policy being pursued, perhaps, by the Ministry of Food and by the Board of Agriculture and Fisheries, and where that sort of thing does take place, as undoubtedly it does, there is delay—sometimes very fatal delay—in arriving at a decision. There are divided counsels, and very often in the end some compromise is reached, which is an unsatisfactory compromise, in order to try to get rid of these difficulties and to get on with the work.

Various references have been made to-day to the position of the farmers, and it is sometimes said in this House that I myself am not very friendly to the farmers. Some of the Members who represent the farming interest come to me and speak in that sense. I am not unfriendly to the farmers, but. at the same time, I do feel this—and the best of the farmers will admit it—that the farmers to-day have, by their very position, and by the very circumstances in which the country is placed, an enormous power over this country. They have an enormous power over the food policy of this country, and it is a power which certainly ought not to be wielded in any unfair way. Those who are concerned most of all with trying to safeguard the public against extortionate prices or excessive prices, sometimes suggest that there has been on the part of farmers, in various districts at any rate, a sort of veiled threat that unless this or that commodity is advanced in price they have it in their power to hold it back from the market. For instance, unless a higher price is paid for cattle and for sheep it is sometimes suggested that the necessary land would not be put under crops for winter fodder, and the result is that pressure is put on the various Departments and the price goes up. Then the very high prices of some commodities can easily be used as a lever in order to force up prices of other commodities. For instance, if the price of corn is very high, they can say that, unless the price of meat or of milk is correspondingly high, they will not grow meat or produce milk.

Sir F. FLANNERY

Will the hon. Gentleman give an instance of farmers making these statements?

Mr. ANDERSON

I am stating that is a policy in regard to which there has been veiled threats in various districts. I know that is true, and I know that those who are responsible for carrying on the policy of food production have had their attention drawn to this particular matter. Now in regard to the question of milk, it would appear that there is going to be a further increase in the price. I do not close my eyes to the difficulties the farmers have got to encounter at the present time. There are difficulties in regard to labour, the extra cost of production, and in regard to imported feeding-stuffs, especially in the winter time, and so on, but I am very glad that something is going to be done in the way of the national organisation of the milk supply. I believe it to be very essential that there should be an organised public production and an organised public distribution of milk, and if that were done it would, in regard to distribution, at any rate, very much reduce the labour involved, and the surplus milk could be used to the best advantage. It would not be left to the private caprice of everyone to do what he likes, but you would have butter or cheese produced as the national needs require on a far better scale than could possibly be done by the individual. No matter how excellent the intention of the individual, he cannot be expected to know in the national sense just what is required at any particular time, and I think more, therefore, could be done to get milk to the consumer at more reasonable prices, and sometimes in a better condition than milk is now. This increased price of milk will react very harshly upon many of the poorest of our people, because, so far as the children are concerned, milk is an absolute necessity; and I certainly think if the price is to go up the duty will devolve on the Ministry of Food to see to it that special steps are taken to provide milk for the children, and, if need be, free milk for some of the children, and milk also for the nursing mothers and for the expectant mothers. Those who care for the health and welfare of the race ought to subscribe to these proposals and do everything in their power to see they are carried into effect. I am very glad, indeed, that the proposals of the Committee over which the hon. and gallant Gentleman presided will be adopted, and I hope the result of those proposals will be a far more equitable distribution in the supply of milk, and, at the same time, the putting into use of the various by-products to the very best purpose.

I wish to deal with the question of fruit. That has also been alluded to by the Parliamentary Secretary this afternoon. There are some people who regard fruit as a kind of luxury, but fruit for many people, and especially for children, in my view, is an absolute necessity. I am quite sure that fruit is essential to the health of the children, and that many of the complaints from which children are suffering at present is due to the fact that it is very difficult to obtain fruit. Prices are very high, and prices of green vegetables, which also contain some of those minerals —salts, and so on—are very high at the same time. Side by side with that you get a very inferior quality of flour and of bread sometimes, and I am quite sure these things together—the absence of fruit, the absence of green vegetables and sometimes, of course, the quality of the bread—are leading to digestive and other troubles so far as the children are concerned. That is a very serious thing from the standpoint of the future health of the race, and any steps that can be taken in order to improve the health of the children and to see they get the things they need ought to be readily undertaken by this House. It would appear that fruit—soft fruit, at any rate—is only going to be sufficient for the jam-making during the summer and the autumn. A very large amount, of course, will be required for Army purposes, and so on. I would urge that any fruit that remains should be so taken in hand that it will really reach the people who most need it, and, in my view, the people who most need the fruit are the children. The needs of the children ought to come first. I had a letter a few days ago from a woman social worker in London, who is very well acquainted with this problem. She says: It seems to me necessary that, with the great shortage of fresh fruit, the Government should take control of all the supplies in the market, or at least, a sufficient amount of the supplies to provide fresh fruit to every child in the schools, public and private, say, on three days a week. I believe this might be done if the Government took the whole of the banana imports and distributed them to the schools, children's hospitals and child-welfare centres." Certainly I would put forward that suggestion for the sympathetic consideration of the Ministry of Food. Various other articles have been dealt with. One of the commodities referred to was bacon, the prices of which in some districts and in some directions are unduly high, and it is not much good increasing the bacon ration or making a larger amount of bacon available for distribution, if the price is so high that the poorest people are not able to purchase that bacon. Therefore I would suggest once more that, in view of the fact that extra supplies are undoubtedly coming into the country, and that a larger supply is available, whether there might not be some adjustment of price lower than that which obtains at present.

In regard to meat, I raise the question to-day of the quality of the meat that is being supplied in some of the districts. I see in Bermondsey, for example, the very-strongest complaints about the quality of meat supplied there. The meat, of course, is imported, and is chilled or frozen, and I do not know how many processes it goes through, but it would appear that by the time it has reached the customer it has almost ceased in some cases to be fit for human consumption; and, indeed, the officer at Bermondsey stated definitely that the meat supplied for people there was not fit for human consumption. Then, in regard to surplus meat, I do not know whether adequate steps have been taken by the Ministry of Food to deal with this particular question, but the rationing of meat supplies has led to this, that sometimes on a Saturday night butchers are left with certain supplies on hand which ought to be sold, because the meat is deteriorating all the time, but in respect to which there are no coupons, and people cannot get the meat because of lack of coupons. Where the meat is really surplus — really above the supply available for distribution by means of the coupons—is the Ministry of Food taking proper steps to see that the meat is disposed of and that none of it is allowed to go bad and be wasted?

With reference to bread, we have had the welcome announcement from the Parliamentary Secretary that the quality is going to be improved. One is very glad to hear that. The quality differs to-day very much in different shops and different districts. In some places they are eating what is not very far removed from white bread, and in other places they have almost reached the stage of sawdust, and, of course, there is a very wide difference between the two. It would appear, however, that the wheat prospects are brighter, and that it is proposed to increase the amount of wheat flour in the bread. I do not know whether the Ministry have made up their mind in regard to any rationing of bread. I think in many ways it would be a pity if the rationing of bread had to be resorted to, but I am certain it would not be at all a bad thing if people ate a little a little less bread and that bread were of a higher quality. I am quite sure it would be a good thing if a little less bread were eaten, and that of a higher quality and greater nutritive value. I am sure, from the standpoint of the health of the people, that would be a good thing, and, therefore, it might be advisable for the Ministry to look at that from that standpoint, and, while cutting down the available supplies a little, increase the quality and nutritive value of the bread.

Mention has been made to-day of certain supplementary rations that are issued, or are supposed to be issued, to certain workers doing specially hard manual work. I should have liked to inquire about that, or as to whether any scheme at all has been put forward by the Ministry in regard to this question of supplementary rations. I am afraid that the whole position is a little chaotic. For myself, I think that there are very great difficulties in the way of giving supplementary rations to special classes of workers. I am not quite sure upon what principle the workers are graded. I am sure that at this moment only the very smallest percentage of workers have got these supplementary rations or have applied for these supplementary ration cards. I understood that the Ministry of Food is taking steps to deal with the question of special rations with extra coupons for expectant mothers. This, I feel, is a most important step. These expectant mothers ought to have extra supplies of food above the strictly rationed supply for at least three months before their child is born. I think the Ministry of Food should take the widest possible steps to make that known, and also to make known the conditions upon which the extra rations can be obtained. In some cases they will take the form of extra meat and butter for these women. In some districts already there are priority certificates for the supply of extra milk for expectant mothers. In my view, in all districts there ought to be priority certificates for the supply of milk both for the children, for nursing mothers, and for expectant mothers. These, I think, are essential needs.

The Ministry ought to press forward its scheme for the establishment in certain districts of national kitchens and restaurants. These national kitchens ought to have no taint of charity in any shape or form about them. They ought to be organised simply from the standpoint of the economy of producing the best food at the lowest possible price, and with the least degree of waste. They have already been tried in various districts.—in Poplar, for instance—and they have been a great success wherever tried, and when the people get to know the real value of what can be done. I shall be glad to hear of the future steps that are being set on foot in regard to this matter.

There is only one other point I wish to bring forward. The local food control committees were constituted for one year. I believe that year expires in August. The composition of these food control committees is very different in the different towns. In some towns, readily enough, there is a Labour—a democratic—element. In other places that element seems to be almost entirely excluded. Whilst I am entirely favourable to a certain amount of local initiative, and so on, I do think that there ought to be guidance and direction from the centre to see to it that no town, where, perhaps, the council is a little reactionary, is allowed to exclude all these elements from the committees or keep them to the smallest possible degree. There is a great difference in the character and composition of these committees. In my view a larger measure of uniformity should be required by the Ministry of Food. Certainly that should be the aim. Whilst a good deal has been accomplished, much remains to be done. I think that the Government Departments have got to be co-ordinated to a greater degree than now. We have to press on still for the elimination of profiteering wherever it shows itself, and in so far as it may show itself, whilst at the same time giving all encouragement for the work of production and distribution. This question of food production and food distribution ought to have the right of way all the time. It is in the public interest that it should be so.

Mr. CHARLES ROBERTS

I have two points to put very shortly to which I should like an answer. The first is a financial one. What we are technically doing is to vote £1,000 for the necessary expenses or supplies required by the Ministry of Food. Why does the Food Minister think it is necessary only to take a Token Vote for his establishment? Ordinary Departments provide us with an estimate. No doubt during the War any military or other Department that has got to do with military or naval affairs, quite rightly, of course, takes a Token Vote, but I cannot quite see what information it would give to the enemy for the Minister of Food to tell us how much he is spending on his establishment. In fact, all these new Ministries—the Pensions Ministry, the Food, the Shipping, and the National Service Ministries, Reconstruction, and the Ministry of Blockade —all simply take Token Votes, and that does not seem to me to be at all satisfactory. It is one other illustration of the way in which Departments escape the control of the House of Commons. I really cannot think there can be any justification in the War, or in the nature of things, for so doing. It is said that the Vote will be accounted for in the following way: Salaries, wages, allowances, travelling expenses, incidental expenses, law charges, fees for birth and death certificates. What the latter has to do with the Ministry of Food beats me.

Mr. CLYNES

Certificates are necessary for sugar registration and other things.

Mr. ROBERTS

Oh, I see; but why death certificates? Then I note food economy propaganda, rationing expenses, national kitchen subsidies towards the sale of foodstuffs. It is not merely a question of financial purity—though that really is involved. These are very interesting experiments which the Minister of Food is conducting and we should like to know what they are costing. In the course of his speech the right hon. Gentleman was interrupted by an hon. Member who asked him whether any steps were being taken to deal with that extra subsidy, which is said to be £10,000,000, and which apparently has been paid by his Department. Ho merely replied that he was very carefully considering it. I was disappointed with that, because I thought by this time steps would have been taken to make the continuance of that very excessive charge impossible. Perhaps in his reply the right hon. Gentleman will tell us further what has been done. I think we should like to know, so far as we can, not perhaps his estimate for the future, but at least what his Department has been spending in the past year. Those figures he certainly ought to give. If he could give us some of these figures it would be very interesting both to the House of Commons, which, I am sure, wants to know what these new and ever-growing Departments are doing. Speaking for myself, I should very much like to know what is the cost of these experiments, of which we get a very indistinct and faint glimpse now and then.

It is not in any spirit of hostility towards the Department of the right hon. Gentleman that I put these questions. You cannot deal, as he has been doing, with the food supply of the country without heavy administrative expenses. That is a small portion of the inconvenience which we are quite ready to put up with; but it is, I think, desirable that the House of Commons should retain a vigilant supervision in this matter, and for that reason I should like to put my point. I hope next year when he speaks, he will do us the honour of giving us—unless at the time there is what I cannot quite see, some reasons that military information may be given to the enemy—how on earth I cannot conceive or appreciate—perhaps next year—the Department will be good enough to give to the House of Commons some little information as to what it is costing. That is the first point. I hope the right hon. Gentleman will be able to give us some account, some information, as to what the cost of his Department, which now is employing—perhaps quite rightly—between 6,000 and 7,000 clerks or officials, is likely to be. We really ought to have a definite statement which all other Departments are now in the habit of giving. There was a lacuna in the speech of the right hon. Gentleman which, for my second point, I will ask him to deal with. I do not think he told us much about the supply of sugar. As a matter of fact there is a good deal of complaint in my Constituency about the shortage of the supply of sugar. Perhaps these complaints are found in other parts of the country. I do not know whether he can hold out any hope of any improvement in the supplies. I presume not. But if there is any dissatisfaction resulting from the shortage of sugar, which may very naturally occur, and one cannot complain about it, one of the things which would relieve that dissatisfaction would be to tell the country what he is doing in the matter. Is the present situation due to shortage of shipping, or to other causes? I suppose there is plenty of sugar in the world, but that the difficulty is to get it here! Dissatisfaction is abroad in the country, and if the right hon. Gentleman can use this opportunity of explaining the reasons for this shortage, he may remove that dissatisfaction. I have been away for some time and do not quite know the position, but I hope to be reassured by the right hon. Gentleman, that the shortage of sugar is not due to any of it being wasted on the manufacture of intoxicating liquors. I always begrudge the wastage of sugar on that. I hope ho will not mind me asking him whether or not he has been able to reduce that source of sugar supply to its absolutely irreducible minimum?

7.0 P.M.

Sir J. SPEAR

I would like to be allowed to congratulate the right hon. Gentleman on the honour which His Majesty the King has lately conferred upon him. I wish to say at once that I listened to his very able speech to-day with a great deal of pleasure, and with an increasing degree of hopefulness. The pleasure arose largely from the fact that it was shown that the policy of the Ministry of Food in regard to maximum prices for meat is exactly the reverse policy to that pursued last year, the policy which caused a glut of meat in September and October, and a great scarcity, almost amounting to a famine, in January. That error embarrassed very considerably the consumer, and it is good to know that that policy is not only not being continued, but that the reverse has been adopted, and that encouragement is now provided, by giving higher maximum prices for meat during the next winter, to secure the very best supply of homebred meat throughout the year. I think the Ministry acted very wisely to fix prices up to June, thereby giving confidence to the producers, and enabling them to increase and develop their system of production with the knowledge of some stability for it. There is one point I would put for the consideration of the right hon. Gentleman. It refers to the maximum prices, though it is true it is a subsidiary point. The maximum prices for lambs is insufficient. The same price is provided for fat lambs as is provided for old ewes and rams. The result of that is that it is keeping fat lambs out of the market just now when an increased meat supply is much needed. The farmer keeps them until they get heavier, because he has to sell them now at the price equal to that paid for ewes and for rams. If the right hon. Gentleman will give attention to that point I think it would lead to a perfecting of the Ministry's scheme of food production. The question of the milk supply is a very important one, and I am glad that the right hon. Gentleman has announced that from 5th June the price will be increased to 1s. 4d. per gallon to the producer. I agree entirely with what fell from the hon. Member for Attercliffe (Mr. Anderson), that while profiteering must be prevented, at the same time, in the interests of the consumer as well as justice to the producer, it is necessary to arrange for a price that will cover the cost of production. Only those engaged in the milk trade can realise to what extent the cost of production has increased of late, and there is a very strong grievance existing amongst producers, especially in London, in regard to selling milk directly to the retailer, who only receives 1s. per gallon while the retailer gets 1s. per gallon for selling the milk. Seeing that the cost of producing the milk is infinitely greater than the cost of selling it, this inequality is producing great discontent and, I think, justifiable resentment amongst milk producers at the inequality of the division of payment for milk. I am aware that the system promoted by the Ministry was made with the idea that milk would have to be consigned to a wholesaler, and through him to the retailer. I know that occurs in some instances, but even then the wholesaler is allowed to take 4d. profit for merely passing the milk on to the retailer, and the wholesaler and the retailer get between them 1s., which is the amount allowed to be charged by the producer. I know the producer can charge railway carriage, but that does not go into his own pocket, and it is merely expenditure in conveying the milk. I am glad that injustice will be somewhat remedied by the announcement which the right hon. Gentleman has made that from June the price to the producer will be 1s. 4d. per gallon.

With reference to the combine in London, I hope the Ministry of Food will keep a very close watch on their actions, because there is a danger of that combine crushing out the regular suppliers of milk. Members of the combine are largely producers of milk themselves, and in that capacity they get both the 4d. allowed to the wholesaler and the 8d. allowed to the retailer, although the milk does not really pass through the premises of the combine. Members of the combine arrange with the producers to send direct to the retailer, and they practically incur little or no expense, and yet they get the 4d. allowed to the wholesaler. That competition is not fair, and unless it is watched carefully it will interfere with the free supply of milk to the Metropolis. With reference to the proposal to control the milk supply, the hon. Member for Plymouth spoke upon it just now, and we all know how anxious he is to promote the social welfare of the people in every way, and I am sure that he would not support that policy if he did not think it would be better for the children and would secure a more equal distribution for the general population. I think that policy would be feasible in the Metropolis and other large towns, but I am afraid it would break down in the provinces and more especially in the rural districts.

One question which I hope will not be lost sight of is the avoidance of a flat rate for the price of milk. The cost of producing milk varies so much in different localities that if a flat rate is fixed I am afraid it will drive out of the business a large number of men who are producing milk on very expensive land and under different conditions near large towns where the cost of labour is far more expensive than in other parts of the country. As a rule the land round the town is rented very highly, sometimes as much as £5 and £6 per acre, and wages are higher there. I hope I am avoiding anything like controversy, but the very fact of doubling the Income Tax on the basis of the rental will tell very strongly against the dairymen in the case of land rented at a high price near a large town, and this will put him at a considerable disadvantage as compared with producers 20 or 30 miles away who have land rented at a much lower rate and whose labour is less expensive. I hope if the control of milk is to be established the Ministry will avoid anything like a flat rate. I know this is very difficult, but I repeat that if a flat rate is proposed I hardly see how the producers of milk whose expenses are abnormally great can compete with producers whose expenses of production are very much smaller.

I am glad the right hon. Gentleman has announced a considerable development of cold storage provision for meat. Here, again, I am obliged to say that the policy of the Ministry of Food last year in this respect was deplorable. On 17th July last year I urged here the importance of increasing our cold storage, recognising that the policy of the Ministry would cause a glut of meat in September and October, and consequently it was very desirable that the meat should be secured and preserved for the winter months. I especially urged that in Plymouth there should be increased facilities for cold storage. The reply given was that an examination had been made, and it was thought that repairs there would be sufficient, with the result that when meat came in large quantities there was no accommodation, and some of the ships had to leave the ports for other places and were sunk by submarines, and in this way two or three cargoes of meat were lost through the lack of cold storage. I hope with the increased provision of cold storage that sort of thing will not recur, and if I may say so, as winter approaches, seeing the high cost of concentrated food and the scarcity of hay, in all probability there will not be a very great output of fat cattle. I hope the Ministry will keep their eye on that matter, and secure that the beasts will be slaughtered through the winter when there is a natural scarcity.

I listened with pleasure to what the right hon. Gentleman said about the increased potato crop. I am not sure but what the credit of that is due to the Board of Agriculture rather than to the Ministry of Food. The potato crop of the year before last, on account of the low price, made growers hesitate about increasing their acreage under potatoes, but the promise to guarantee £6 per ton overcame that hesitation, and as a result there was a very largely increased acreage tilled, and an abundance of potatoes. We appreciate the larger supply of bacon, and give the Government credit for arranging that matter, for it has considerably relieved the shortage of other meat. Here, again, I must point out that the Ministry of Food or the Board of Agriculture was largely responsible for the deficiency of bacon. We were told eighteen months ago that pigs must not be kept with the result that there was a great scarcity of bacon. What farmers want is as far as possible a continuity of policy, and there is a feeling amongst farmers that co-operation between the Board of Agriculture and the Ministry of Food is not as complete as it ought to be. We get contradictory-Orders, and the Orders that a farmer has now are legion, and at least we do not want a contradiction of Orders between the Board of Agriculture and the Ministry of Food. We as agriculturists think that, as the President of the Board of Agriculture is responsible for the production of food, he, in conjunction with the Ministry of Food, ought to fix maximum prices. He is the judge of the lowest possible price that will afford sufficient encouragement to the producer to get the largest possible supply of that commodity. He is responsible for production, and surely the Ministry of Food should be responsible for distribution rather than production! If the President of the Board of Agriculture dealt with maximum prices in consultation with the Minister of Food, I think contradictory Orders would not so often occur as is, unfortunately, the case at the present time. The right hon. Gentleman paid a very fitting testimony to the splendid services of the Mercantile Marine in bringing food to this country, which I am sure every Member of the House endorses, but, remembering the enormous difficulties under which food is being produced at the present moment, such as the lack of labour and the want of machinists to repair machines and smiths to shoe the horses, I think he might have expressed his high appreciation of the agricultural classes for having succeeded in producing such a largely increased quantity of food. We are doing nothing more than our duty, and we do not want there to be any profiteering. All we ask is that the Board of Agriculture and the Ministry of Food will deal with us in a way that will not check production, which we as much as other people are as anxious to see increased in the interests of the commonwealth.

Mr. WING

I should like to associate myself with the many complimentary remarks that have been uttered this afternoon in relation to the accomplishments of the Ministry during the past year. The result very largely answers the doctrinaires of Islington and Coventry. Their theory really had its chance at the commencement of the War, but the mounting up of prices by the abuses which prevailed really left the Government no other course than to control production and supply. There have been one or two interesting things said this afternoon in relation to a subject which had evidently not occurred to the representative of the Ministry, but which no doubt would have been brought to his notice by the right hon. Gentleman the Member for the Rushcliffe Division (Mr. Leif Jones) had he been present. In his absence the subject of beer, which evidently could not be avoided, was introduced by the hon. Member for Huddersfield (Mr. Sherwell) and the hon. and gallant Member for Plymouth (Major Astor), both of whom apparently spoke with great expert knowledge. They knew a great deal about gravities, of which I feel ignorant, but there was one thing clear from their remarks, and that was the shameless profiteering that has taken place. If I might moralise, I should like to suggest that the less beer the country has the better it seems to be. I take it that the greater sobriety of the nation has resulted from the greater difficulty in obtaining beer. There have been general remarks made about the health of the country, but the health of the country does not seem to have suffered. The death-rate does not seem to have been accelerated, and a responsible authority the other day went so far as to say that suicides and crime had been reduced. I should like to suggest that there should be no increase in the supply of beer, or at least, if there is, that it should be of that gravity which, as the hon. and gallant Member for Plymouth pointed out, does no particular harm, while still quenching one's thirst.

I rise particularly, however, to ask the Ministry to pay special attention to the incoming great fish supply on the northeast and east coast. My attention has been drawn to the matter by the Scottish fishermen who are now on their way to the north-east coast, and who will gradually come to the east coast. There is not the slightest doubt that we shall have a very large catch of herrings this year. As a rule, those herrings have been exploited on the Continent. There have been several instances in which supplies of fish have been wasted for want of transport. It is heart-breaking to men who go out night and day to have their fish taken away in carts to the manure manufacturer for use on the land. I would ask the Ministry to take into special consideration several means whereby that fish will not be in any way wasted. It might, for instance, be used in the camps close by if there is a glut. The herring is the king of the sea, and perhaps the most luscious fish that there is, and it is only a kind of false prejudice that is raised against it. It is a beautiful fish in appearance, and it is a wholesome form of food. The fishermen are wondering if they are going to have any disappointment, and it would really be a great message of hope to a large number of men who are gradually coming down the coast if they could be told that the Ministry are making special arrangements whereby their catches shall be manipulated not only for their own personal advantage in the sense of a sale, but for the advantage of the people who want the food. I hope I shall have a response from the right hon. Gentleman which will be satisfactory. May I associate myself with the congratulations that previous speakers have tendered to the right hon. Gentleman on the honour that he has received, but I believe deservedly received, and join in the satisfaction with which the House has listened to his statement this afternoon.

Mr. GULLAND

I was delighted to hear the right hon. Gentleman say that the bread prospect is better now than it has been for a long time, and that we have the prospect of wheat in greater quantity and flour in better quality. I want to say a few words about a question that has already been brought to the right hon. Gentleman's notice by the bakers and the co-operative societies in Scotland. In Scotland, as it happens, a larger proportion of imported flour is used than in England. That has always happened. The Scottish people have always used a larger quantity of foreign flour and that continues under existing circumstances. I understand that the bakers in Scotland use 65 per cent. of G.R. flour and 35 per cent. of imported flour. The price of G.R. flour is 44s. 3d. per sack, and the price of imported flour is 51s. 9d. per sack. In case of home flour, the price is at the mill door, and in the case of imported flour it is on the quay. The mills in Scotland are situated only at Glasgow, Edinburgh, Dundee, one in Montrose, and, I think, though I am not sure, one in Aberdeen. That means that a very large proportion of the Scottish bakers have to use flour that costs 7s. 6d. per sack more than the English bakers pay for it. Another grievance is that the bakers and co-operative societies at a distance from these mills have to pay carriage on the flour ranging up to 8d. per sack, which is equivalent to 1d. per loaf. In the case of my own Constituency, for instance, the railway carriage on flour from Glasgow or Edinburgh is equivalent to ¼d. per loaf. These mills have also the carriage on their coke and other supplies. That means that the bakers in the big centres are able to produce their bread very much more cheaply. They purchase everything cheaper and their expenses are lower. When they have big businesses they can, of course, produce much more cheaply. On the other hand, the bakers in the outside areas produce at a much greater cost.

Incidentally, wages are higher in Scotland than in England, and at present bakers' wages are going up. Probably that is quite a good thing. There are many threats of strikes which seem to get settled. I noticed in yesterday's "Scotsman" that two threatened strikes have been settled, in one case by the grant of a war bonus of 6s. per week to bakers and in the other case by the grant of an increase of 17s. per week to bakers. Another strike is threatened, the men demanding an increase in wages of 14s. per week, and an additional 5d. per hour for overtime. That has been going on all along, and it is only in accordance with what is happening all over the country. Last week a question was asked the right hon. Gentleman about this bread, and he said that there was in the Flour Prices Order the possibility of raising the prices to meet exceptional circumstances, the appeal, as I understand it, to be made to the food control committee in each district. Of course, it is a very unpopular thing for a food control committee to raise the price of bread for any reason. The Government say that the price of bread is to be 9d., and the public want it at 9d., and they are entitled to get it at 8d. People complain where the price has been raised. I know in several cases in Scotland that the food control committee has refused to raise the price of bread. The Government, for good or bad, has got the whole subject in its own hands. It fixes the price of flour, of bread, and of coke, and it can fix the railway carriage. It fixes the price of everything. In the first place, you have this distinction made between the price of home flour and foreign flour which penalises the Scotsman, and, in the second place, you only have a few mills in Scotland, which again penalises the baker by the high railway rates that he has to pay. I do not know whether it would be possible for the right, hon. Gentleman to fix a flat rate all round for railway carriage, and not to have a high rate and a low rate. In any case, the question is rather a clamant one. I know the right hon. Gentleman is very sympathetic, and I hope he will go into it very carefully, so as to try and prevent a hardship which is undoubtedly suffered at the present time by the bakers and cooperative societies in Scotland. I hope he will do that without in any way making the public in these parts pay more than the public pay in the more favoured centres.

Mr. BIGLAND

One sentence in the speech of the Parliamentary Secretary attracted my attention, namely, that in which he said that in regard to the foreign purchases of food the Ministry to-day is practically almost forced to go to the United States and Canada for our food supplies owing to the condition of the freight market and the difficulty of drawing supplies from other parts of the world. I desire to gather the feeling of the Committee as to whether it would be wise to press upon the Ministry of Food the possibility, during this interregnum of freight space, of buying in those distant lands where no tonnage is now available supplies of food which might be put on one side and kept for the time of need that will come after the War is over. One phase of the matter I desire to emphasise is that all those firms engaged in this trade in this country, who have handled these goods for many years, for the past eighteen months have been absolutely stopped from entering into any transactions on their own account. I can foresee that the moment peace is in sight there will be an enormous impetus to speculation. Enemy countries will be buying food supplies of every kind, and the speculation which will arise will be such that the prices of food now experienced in this country to-day are low compared with what they will be within three months after the declaration of peace. It would therefore be well if hon. Members speaking on this matter were to give their opinion as to whether it would be a wise policy for the Ministry of Food to look over the world, particularly those parts where freight is unobtainable to-day and where there are many food products obtainable at low prices, which might be kept for a considerable period at a considerable cost, and whether it would be a wise thing for this House to press the Ministry of Food to start on that policy now.

We know that in regard to wheat and sugar, Commissions were appointed before the Ministry of Food was formed, who did adopt that line of policy to a certain extent. For instance, the Sugar Commission bought sugar in Java, and to a great extent, I believe, they hold stocks there to-day. But the Minister of Food, since he was appointed, has not, so far as I know, ventured on this policy of providing for the future. Our minds go back to the man who, thousands of years ago, saw a plethora during the near years and a famine in the years to come, and who advised the Pharaoh of that day to build warehouses and put away the surplus stock for the time of famine that was coming. I see that just as clearly to-day as it was seen in Egypt thousands of years ago. I see in India an enormous accumulation of seeds. In Ceylon, in China, in the South Sea Islands, and in many other parts of the world, there are goods to-day which might be had at pre-war prices. That would necessitate the building of warehouses, and going to enormous capital expenditure to take care of these surplus stocks for the time of need that will come. I make the statement as an expert that I believe within three months after the declaration of peace many of these articles of food will advance 300 per cent., because we shall have Denmark, Holland, Austria, Germany, and other countries rushing to buy, and doing so at a moment when all the merchants of the world will be liberated from the position they have been in, namely, that they may not during this time of war enter into transactions of a speculative nature on their own account. These two forces, acting together at a given moment, within a few weeks will force up prices to an enormous value. It is my personal opinion that although the risks are great, although the difficulties are enormous, and although with regard to exchange and the passing of money from London to other parts of the world to-day they are almost insuperable, yet, if the British Government care to take action, those difficulties, to a certain extent, may be overcome. I will go further and say that perhaps the moment has arrived when we should invite our Allies, France, the United Slates, and Italy, to join in the definite action of purchasing, caring for— because many of these products will go bad if they are not taken care of in a thorough way—and storing all products which will be wanted for the peoples of these countries when the commerce of the world is again opened. If any hon. Members speak on the subject I should like to hear whether they think it would be asking the Government to undertake an undue financial risk to advance money now which, perhaps, might not be brought back into circulation again for two or three years. Even that would have to be accompanied by very heavy capital expenditure for the provision of warehouse room, insurance, and other charges during the interim. Would it be a wise policy to press upon the Ministry of Food that they should direct their attention to this matter, not only thinking of the requirements of the people of this country for the next month or two, but also taking definite action, so far as possible, to cover our requirements for a couple of years after the War?

Sir J. McCALLUM

I do not desire to press the right hon. Gentleman too much, as he has already given us a masterly statement upon the work of his Department. I should like to join with other speakers in saying that no Department under the British Government is better or as well managed as the one over which Lord Rhondda presides. I have only one complaint to make and it is the only personal complaint I have made for thirty years. It is in connection with fats. We have had great trouble in that trade and in the soap industry and other allied industries, where there has been a good deal of profiteering, not by the manufacturers, but by those who handle the raw materials. As an example, in reference to nut oils, the prices have been very moderate, ranging from £40 to £50 a ton, but while foreign tallow has been selling at upwards of £60 a ton, the prices asked for home products here is as high as £169 a ton. While we highly commend the Department for the manner in which they have looked after the interests of those identified with agriculture, such as potato farmers, we feel that we have a complaint. Take the case of nitro-glycerine. The Chancellor of the Exchequer some time ago admitted that he had been very well served by the soap trade undertaking to purchase glycerine at £59 a ton during the War. That same class of glycerine is selling to-day in Paris and New York at £225 a ton. In these circumstances it is well to consider that there should be uniformity of sacrifice. Those engaged in the jam trade have had heaps of sugar and an abundance of fruit given to them, and the trade has gone on swimmingly, their business being increased to a greater extent than ever and their profits being magnificent. There has been no profiteering in connection with glycerine. The price charged in many cases by agreement has been 50 per cent. above the usual profits taken by the trade. It would be well if the price of tallow could be equalised with that for nut oils, and, if it is not equalised, it should be arranged that we should get not less than what is being paid in foreign markets. The difficulty is that while many manufacturers have been buying in foreign markets, they cannot get delivery. The price is low. Price sales are made, but, owing to the difficulties of transport, those who bought goods six or nine months ago are still without deliveries. I am sure that the right hon. Gentleman only requires to be reminded of these facts to see that any arrangements entered into under his supervision are likely to be of such a nature as to secure that justice is done all round. If there is to be a sacrifice, let it be equal and uniform

Mr. CAUTLEY

I desire to bring to the attention of the Parliamentary Secretary one or two matters affecting farmers, more particularly in my own Division, but also affecting farmers as a whole, with the hope that he may be able to meet the points raised. The existing position of cereals generally is very much more satisfactory throughout the world and also in this country. There is every prospect, so we hear from America, of the largest harvest they have had for a long time. The same remark applies to Canada and to the Argentine. Although we cannot rely on the Argentine to the same extent, owing to the length of the voyage and the difficulties of transport, yet we may look forward to a very largely increased supply of wheat and other grains from the United States and Canada. We have also seen during the last week or ten days a rather flamboyant account of the condition of cereal crops in this country, issued by a branch of the Ministry of Food. Allowing for an exaggeration of language, which I think that statement contains, there is one statement in it which I assumed to be founded on fact, namely, that even now four-fifths of the British supply for the next twelve months is assured.

Mr. CLYNES

I should like the hon. Member to understand that I do not share at all the view he has just expressed.

Mr. CAUTLEY

I read the report in the "Times." My own view rather corresponds with that of the right hon. Gentleman. The farmers feel that they have a grievance in that under the Orders made and in existence to-day no farmer can use for the consumption of his own stock any cereal that he produces that is fit for human consumption. When the position of the cereals in this country was bad, as undoubtedly it was bad and serious up to Christmas time, I had nothing to say, and the farmers submitted to what they knew was to the advantage of the population as the bread supply had to be kept secure at all costs. But it is a very serious hindrance to a farmer to be placed in the position that he shall not be able to use for his stock the corn that is produced on his holding, and more particularly the inferior corn. He has to go elsewhere at great expense. He has to buy other foods which are difficult to get and he has the double cost of carriage, and he is, therefore, in many cases compelled to keep fewer animals on his farm than he otherwise would do. The most essential element in growing corn is the possession of manure, and in most cases the essential way to get it is to keep stock on farm in order to trample the straw that he grows into manure, and he cannot keep that stock to any advantage—you cannot live on straw alone and he cannot grow the hay, more particularly now under the recent Order to plough up land to grow corn—without concentrated food. He cannot get cake. Linseed is not coming into the country and cotton-seed is short, and now, as the Order stands, he is deprived from using the inferior corn that he grows or any corn which may be said to be fit for human food. I therefore press on the right hon. Gentleman that he should consider this matter and see whether, still preserving the safety of the food of the people, he cannot release at any rate the inferior corn, the thin barley for instance, that is grown on the holding. In Suffolk, where there are large arable farms, there are numbers of farmers who do not keep cattle but keep pigs to trample their corn into manure, who cannot keep pigs without having this concentrated food, and who will infallibly produce less corn on their holding unless they are able to keep animals to trample their straw into manure and feed them while they are so doing. That is a very urgent matter, and it is worthy of his immediate consideration, with a view to the coming harvest. I would also ask him to bear this in mind. I place great reliance on the Chairman of the Wheat Commission, but I do not place the same reliance on the Home Cereals Committee which advises him. So far as I have been given to understand, they are gentlemen mainly connected with the milling and corn trades who do not pay sufficient attention either to the production of home-grown cereals or to the interests of the farmers who are producing those cereals. I take the opportunity of pressing this, which is a most important matter for all farmers engaged in producing cereals.

I should like to bring another point to his attention. Not only now is the human population rationed, but the animal population is rationed for all concentrated foods. I do not complain, and I do not think the majority of farmers complain of the system of rationing or of the quantity of the ration. Though they would like more, they are willing to put up with it so long as they can get the concentrated food. But they complain most bitterly of the difficulty of getting the rationed foods to which they are entitled. A system has been designed by the Feeding Stuffs Committee, which for some reason or other is under the control of the right hon. Gentleman. It has to deal with all the feeding stuffs which are used for animal purposes, and one of the curious positions that we have in this country is that, although the Board of Agriculture is the body which has to look after all the animal population, it is left to the Food Controller to deal with the feeding stuffs, which all come from abroad, and to distribute them amongst the animals. I should have thought it was obvious that the whole of this Feeding Stuffs Distribution Committee ought to be handed over to the Board of Agriculture. But whether or not that may come to pass, I would ask the right hon. Gentleman at once to take into consideration and examination the breakdown that now exists in this Department, which is under his control. I have complaint after complaint from farmers and owners either of pigs or poultry, who are all rationed now, and horse keepers, that although they wrote up to the Live Stock Commissioners and received the priority certificates which entitled them to the allowance of feeding stuff for the particular stock that they have, they cannot get the feeding stuffs and the system has broken down, while, on the other hand, some of the larger people, who buy in larger quantities, get it, though they have no priority certificate at all. That is grossly unfair. I know from my own experience that the complaint is well founded, but I would press on the Parliamentary Secretary, who may not agree with me that the Feeding Stuffs Committee should be handed over bodily to the Board of Agriculture, that while it is under his control he should look into the matter.

I wish to emphasise a matter that has been spoken of by the hon. Gentleman (Sir J. Spear), that is whether he will consider if it is not possible to make some differentiation in the price of lamb as compared with mutton. The price of the Southdown sheep and the Southdown lamb, and of all lambs, is just the same as the price of the oldest ewe or ram. The price of the very best lamb is now the very same price as the very toughest mutton that is produced. That is scarcely right if it can be avoided. It can only be justified by absolute necessity. But it is not so much of the difference of price that I am speaking as of the effect that this system has on the working of the farms. A common and a very useful practice of farming, more particularly in my division, has been that the farmers have bought a flock of sheep which they are going to keep for one year on the farm. They have one crop of lambs and sell them early in the season when they have eaten up the clover. They then prepare the land for the next crop of wheat and keep the ewes in lamb. It is essential that they should get rid of their lambs and ewes as soon as they can. The crop from which they are fed gives out sooner or later, and if they can sell the best lambs first and go on regularly they are able to carry out that system of husbandry, which is extremely advantageous for producing more wheat on the land. But this system, beyond that, has this great advantage, that it enables the farmer, by gradually selling his stock, to provide himself with funds for keeping the farm going until the harvest comes along, and until the cattle which he is raising also are ready for market later on in the year. I cannot think there can be any practical difficulty in arranging that lamb for the next month or two should be a higher value per 1b. than rough mutton. It will not lessen the ultimate amount of food in the country. It is quite a mistake to think that by selling lamb you are going to lessen the total weight of the food ultimately produced. If the lamb is not eating that particular food, the food is there, and other stock will be eating it. The farmer's business is to consume all his stock to the best advantage. There are plenty of people who would pay the extra 2d. a lb. for lamb which they, always paid in pre-war times, because it is much more palatable, and is worth much more per lb. If the right hon. Gentleman could give his attention to these matters and could meet the farmers in this way, I am quite certain the food production of the country would gain.

Captain Sir C. BATHURST

I understand the hon. Gentleman (Mr. Roberts) has put certain questions to my right hon. Friend with regard to sugar, and my right hon. Friend has asked me, as Chairman of the Sugar Commission, to reply to them. As regards sugar for brewing, I have not by me the exact quantities of sugar now being used for brewing, but, so far as I am aware, exactly the same quantity is in fact being used as was used during last year. The whole of that sugar is quite unfit for human consumption. But, under the Order issued last autumn, the whole of it has to be so treated as to render 40 per cent. of it available as grocer's sugar or as syrup, and so fit for human consumption. The remainder is brewer's invert and is used in that form for brewing. If some sugar were not used for this purpose a larger indent would have to be made from the barley supply, and I am quite sure my right hon. Friend would say that under existing circumstances that is even more important than this type of sugar.

8.0 P.M.

Then I understand the hon. Gentleman asks about the stocks of sugar in the country at present. I am glad to say they are large, and I am afraid we should be in a very insecure position if they were not. The stocks represent, roughly, about three months' supply. The reason I say that we should otherwise be in a precarious position is that whereas formerly we drew about a third of the whole of our supplies of sugar from Java and other countries in the East, it is now becoming impossible, owing to the shipping position and the necessity of turning vessels round quickly, to ship from the East at all. It was during the winter months that our supplies from Java and Mauritius were previously obtained, and this year we have no prospect of obtaining any of these supplies during the winter from Java, and therefore we have to build up our stocks now from the one great source of supply, namely, Cuba, in order to provide our necessary winter requirements; and I am sorry to say a good many people have been misled, including a Minister of the Crown in a public utterance last week, into the belief that more sugar would be available for domestic or other consumption. It is a very dangerous position to put forward in view of the fact that our sources of winter supply have ceased to exist in consequence of shipping difficulties. I may mention, as regards Cuba, that we are taking, by agreement with the United States, one-third of the whole Cuban crop, the United States taking the balance. But, unfortunately, the Cuban crop is panning out at a substantially lower figure than was estimated six months ago, the falling off being to the extent of something like 300,000 tons, and that we shall have to make up from other sources. There is one other point—I do not know whether the hon. Gentleman alluded to it—but it has been often raised in my own correspondence; it is interesting to those who grow fruit—the question of sugar for fruit preserving. The fruit crop has turned out to be far less satisfactory than most people, including the Board of Agriculture, had anticipated. Nature seems to have exhausted herself in her very abundant supply of fruit last year. We suffered from cold weather in the spring, and we are now suffering from insects and fun gold pests, and, as a result, the autumn crop of hard fruit is prospectively very far from what has been anticipated. I think there will be very few plums, and possibly no pears, while there will be an under-crop of apples. On the other hand, soft fruit will undoubtedly be more abundant than was expected, although neither strawberries nor gooseberries are likely to come up to the average, raspberries and currants may do so. For that reason I am hoping that the issue of that proportion of the sugar which was intended for autumn hard fruit, and which was to be given out on the 1st of August or a week after, may be made a month earlier, so that it may be available for the late sorts of soft fruit. It will probably not be required to the extent which was estimated for the autumn fruit. I hope these few observations will meet the requirements of the hon. Gentleman, and I am sorry I did not come properly equipped with the exact figures for which he asked.

Mr. CLYNES

I gather the Committee will desire me to say a few words by way of reply to definite questions put by various speakers. With regard to the last stage of the Debate, covered by some five or six hon. Members, it has been a stage of very valuable suggestion. But I am not going to discuss these suggestions now, although I can assure the hon. Members who have addressed the Committee that what they have said will have the close attention of the Food Ministry. I was particularly interested in what fell from the hon. Member for Grimsby as to the fish situation, the drifting of Scottish fishermen to the port of Grimsby, and their natural anxiety to secure the best results from their labours at sea. With regard to the observations of the hon. Members for Dumfries, Birkenhead, Paisley, and East Grinstead, I shall ask those hon. Gentlemen to regard me as intending earnestly to take into consideration what they have suggested. I am particularly interested in the foodstuffs situation; and I think the Ministry of Food has done some good work in that direction. I am not saying we are contented with the position, and I repeat that the suggestion of the hon. Members shall have the closest attention.

The Debate began with a speech from my right hon. Friend the Member for Islington (Mr. Lough). There are only two points in that speech to which I would like to refer. I must deny first of all that we have ever, as he implied, neglected the question of supplies. I recall in fact the first speech I had the privilege of making from this box. It was a speech in which I emphasised our consciousness of supplies being the first and most important part of our problem. Given largo supplies, many things may be left to settle themselves. Further, I have to say that we do not permit local authorities to make orders and regulations on their own account. Their actions are subject to the Regulations and sanction of the Ministry. There are cases, of course, in which we leave them a margin for action to deal with emergencies. Being on the spot they are better judges of local circumstances than we at headquarters can be until we have matters fully reported to us. Take the case of meat. In certain circumstances authority is given to sell meat without coupons rather than that it should seriously deteriorate or go bad. We must leave them to deal with such cases of emergency. But apart from these matters they are controlled in their action by the Regulations and authority of the Ministry of Food. The hon. Member for Coventry (Mr. D. Mason) made a speech which I interpreted as a general disapproval of everything and anything connected with food administration. I think he seemed to regard it as better that we should leave things alone altogether. I do not want to make a mere debating point in reply, but if the hon. Member were here I should have to inform him that his dissatisfaction with the present state of things does not coincide with the view taken by his constituents. A month or two after I assumed office there came to me a deputation from Coventry, including most responsible citizens appointed at a great mass meeting, calling upon me to do the very things of which the hon. Member has made complaint. We have to control prices, we have to buy in foreign markets, and we have had to do many other things of which the hon. Member disapproves, and I will say to those who look at this matter in the same light that it is not enough for them merely to criticise our action; they ought to suggest some alternative policy, as clearly the situation cannot be allowed to drift and settle itself. In view of the reduced quantities of food and of the increasing prices, in view, too, of the shipping difficulties it is essential that the State should organise itself for the supply of food to the civil population as well as for war purposes.

The hon. Member for Huddersfield (Mr. Sherwell) complained of the number of Orders issued and the difficulty of interpreting them. I can only answer that our duties are so numerous, we have so many hundreds of separate articles to deal with, that it is necessary in some cases to issue separate instructions. But we certainly find no pleasure in the issue of numerous Orders, and we try to make them as intelligible as possible. However, I will keep in mind what has been said by the hon. Gentleman. The Member for Attercliffe (Mr. Anderson) has made a speech which I am not going to enter into now, but I ask him to take it from me that his suggestions will be treated in the spirit which he has displayed from the beginning in his constructive and helpful criticisms of the action of the Ministry of Food in dealing with the food problem. The hon. Member for Huddersfield also referred to the rationing of tea, and he dealt with differences which were made in these matters between Scotland and this country. But, as I pointed out to the Committee earlier in the afternoon, we have to travel along this road of the food problem by stages of experiment, and it has often been considered better to see how a thing will work in a small way before making it of general application to the whole country. We are now considering the national and individual rationing of tea, and in that event both Scotland and this country will be put on exactly the same footing. The hon. Member for Lincoln (Mr. Roberts) made some observations, apart from those relating to sugar, about which I have to say a few words. He asked why there were no details in this Estimate, and why we had presented merely a Token Vote. I am not responsible for this procedure, but I understand it to be the custom to put down a Token Vote—it is a common practice.

Mr. C. ROBERTS

A common practice except in the case of new Ministries, which should, I think, give details. There are many items as to which detailed information could be given,

Mr. CLYNES

I think it is the common practice with regard to new Ministries, tout perhaps in time we may mend our ways and return to the old constitutional and regular practice. As to a statement of the cost of administration, I can only say it has not been found possible to pre-sent one now, but we hope it will be possible later on to lay before the House an estimate showing what are the actual costs of the management and organisation of the Ministry of Food. The country and the House of Commons are entitled to know what these expenses are, but meanwhile I can assure my hon. Friend that what may be termed the supply work is carried on without any expense to the State whatever. There expenses, as I indicated in my earlier remarks, are met by very slight charges imposed on the foods which are provided. In short, the food provided by the State has to bear- a small administrative charge, paying the State for what is done, just as the consumer would have to pay the private trader or ordinary merchant if they did the work in place of the State. I think the whole of the points raised by my hon. Friend on the question of sugar have been already answered.

Mr. ROBERTS

Can the right hon. Gentleman tell us any more about the bread subsidy, and give us any further indication of the possibility of reducing that excessive amount?

Mr. CLYNES

I can go to the extent of saying that if my hon. Friend will look up my statement earlier in the day—

Mr. ROBERTS

I have.

Mr. CLYNES

—he will recall the fact that these £10,000,000, which in some quarters it is thought might be saved—I will not commit myself as to the accuracy of that sum—can only be saved at the expense of practically closing a considerable number of the less efficient bakeries. The closing up of such bakeries would, of course, cause great dislocation in the supply of bread. It would put many towns and cities in a difficult and most embarrassing position, and would throw a greater weight on the efficient bakeries than they are capable of bearing. We have, therefore, to keep the less efficient bakeries going for the time being. The problem of making the inefficient bakeries efficient and of bringing pressure to bear on them so that the amount of the subsidy can be lessened is being considered. There is only one other matter to which I need refer, and it was the one raised by the hon. Member for Plymouth (Major Astor) on the subject of beer. He gave some general information to the House as to the policy of the Ministry in this matter. All I can say is that we have to make a choice as between a considerable shortage, that is to say a shortage much more severe than is now felt, in the supply of beer and increasing the bulk barrelage of beer without increasing the use of the materials out of which beer is made. Therefore we chose, so to speak, a small quantity of good beer with a larger quantity than was previously supplied of beer that at the best can be called third, and I am not sure that everyone would call it that. Having made that choice we decided to force the publicans to have a certain quantity of the lower price and to sell at a low rate, at a price which we fixed, which was a price less than prevailed for beer of anything like the same quality. Having touched on this subject, I would make an appeal, partly to the brewers and partly to the publicans, to take seriously into account the claims of workmen for a drink of beer who on account of their hours of labour and conditions of employment are not as free to take their chance of it as others in the community. I am not now raising anything controversial or going into the question of whether there ought to be beer or not. The fact is that there is beer and that we have thought it a good policy to continue the brewing of some beer. It is very hard lines upon men who, say, are released from a foundry, chemical works, or gas works at a certain time, perhaps at nine o'clock in the evening, to find that there is not a drop left for them, and that those who were able to leave off their work earlier have taken more than their share. We ought, therefore, to have not merely a rationing of bread but so far as beer is concerned a rationing of beer, though that must be done, I think, on voluntary lines. I trust this appeal which I make because of the numerous letters and deputations that I have received, and the very moving appeals that have been addressed to the Minister of Food to see if anything can be done in this regard, will be responded to.

Mr. WING

Will the right hon. Gentleman consider the suggestion made by the hon. Member for Plymouth, namely, the suspension of the luxury beer, which is a very high price, so that really the people for whom this beer is intended, the munition workers, might get the beer they desired rather than have it drunk by other people who make the munition workers merely an excuse for getting beer which the other men cannot afford.

Mr. CLYNES

It is a very debateable point as to what is the best policy to pursue on this matter, and I think many munition workers, on account of their earnings, would prefer the better quality of beer rather than be forced into the position of being able only to buy the poorer quality. You cannot by any general, sweeping plan deal with all these matters. The Debate has shown that there is, with one or two exceptions, quite general sympathy with the work of the Ministry, and real appreciation of what it has endeavoured to do. We feel in the Ministry of Food that we are not at the end of our labours. Every day brings its new questions and duties to attend to, and given anything like a continuance of the support we have had from the House, I trust the Ministry of Food will not fall short in making further endeavours to meet all requirements.

Mr. SHERWELL

May I remind the right hon. Gentleman that he has not addressed himself to the point I put about the specific gravity of 1034. The point I put was, Why, if you fix the maximum price for grades below 1034, not regulate the price of beers above 1034↑

Mr. CLYNES

I agree that the matter is worth consideration. I cannot at this moment give a detailed reply, but in view of the opinions that have been expressed, I will see if the case can be further considered.

Question put, and agreed to.

Resolution to be reported upon Monday next; Committee to sit again upon Monday next.

The remaining Orders were read, and postponed.

Whereupon MR. DEPUTY-SPEAKER, pursuant to the Order of the House of the 13th February, proposed the Question, "That this House do now adjourn."

Question put, and agreed to.

Adjourned accordingly at Twenty-four minutes after Eight o'clock till Monday next, pursuant to the Order of the House of the 13th February.