Lords Sitting of 24 October 1945

Preamble
The House met at half-past two of the clock, The LORD CHANCELLOR on the Woolsack.
VISCOUNT KEMSLEY.
James Gomer, Baron Kemsley, having been created Viscount Kemsley of Drop-more in the County of Buckingham—Was (in the usual manner) introduced.

LORD BROUGHSHANE.
Sir William Henry Davison, K.B.E., having been created Baron Broughshane of Kensington in the County of London—Was (in the usual manner) introduced.
Several Lords—Took the Oath.

THURSDAY MEETING AT FOUR O'CLOCK.
THE SECRETARY OF STATE FOR DOMINION AFFAIRS (VISCOUNT ADDISON): My Lords, I ask your Lordships to allow me to intervene for a moment to remind you of the decision taken yesterday on the Second Report from the Select Committee, which makes some alteration in the times of the sittings of the House, in that on Thursdays we shall sit at 4 o'clock. I thought it might be useful, therefore, if I reminded your Lordships that to-morrow we shall sit at 4 o'clock.
MINISTRY OF HEALTH PROVISIONAL ORDER CONFIRMATION (WESTON-SUPER-MARE) BILL. [H.L.]
House in Committee (according to Order) on re-commitment of the Bill: Bill reported without amendment.
MINISTRY OF HEALTH PROVISIONAL ORDER CONFIRMATION (DONCASTER) BILL. [H.L.]
House in Committee (according to Order) on re-commitment of the Bill: Bill reported without amendment.
NEWCASTLE-UPON-TYNE CORPORATION (TROLLEY VEHICLES) PROVISIONAL ORDER BILL.
House in Committee (according to Order) on re-commitment of the Bill: Bill reported without amendment.

NUTRITIONAL POLICY.
2.50 p.m.
LORD HANKEY LORD HANKEY rose to move to resolve, That the health of the population should be the guiding principle to govern the nutritional policy of the Government, and that in applying that principle to the case of bread, the health of the consumer should be the primary factor, and milling and other interests should be developed in harmony with this policy.
The noble Lord said: My Lords, the Resolution which stands in my name takes its origin from the remarkable debate on bread initiated by my noble friend Lord Teviot on February 28 last. Remarkable because nine out of the ten speakers in the debate—that is to say, all except the speaker for the Government—supported a return to the 85 per cent. extraction bread; remarkable for the consternation in health circles, not excluding Government circles at the Government's attitude; and remarkable, too, for the interest that it aroused in the country. The first stock of Hansard was sold out almost at once. There were leading articles in many important daily and weekly newspapers and other periodicals, including the Lancet, from which I shall quote in a moment, and the British Medical Journal, whose article headed, "The Political Loaf" caused many a chuckle. There was also a discussion on the B.B.C.
During the debate, it was recalled that the adoption of low-extraction flour—white bread, in fact—at the end of the last century had been followed by an increase in anæmia, much subnormal health, a grave deterioration in the teeth of the nation and a consequent increase

449
in digestive troubles; that successive Governments had disregarded the warnings of their experts, until in March, 1942, my noble friend Lord Woo1ton crowned his great nutrition policy by introducing 85 per cent. extraction bread. It was; shown that that bold step had been followed by many improvements in health among them a decrease in anæmia, less constipation, and many other improve-merits mentioned by my noble friends. Lord Horder and Lord Balfour of Burleigh. The gravest doubts were expressed. however, as to the wisdom of the later whiter bread policy, which involved a reduction of the extraction rate first it the autumn to 82½ per cent. and then at the beginning of the new year to 80 per cent., the present bread. The admission that this latter reduction was made before the Government had received figures to show whether the commercial application of the new method of milling safe caused grave concern. The failure to secure any categorical statement of the view of the Government's experts, and especially their health experts, increased the general uneasiness of those present. No wonder that my noble friend Lord Teviot said, at the end of the debate, that he was very far from happy at the situation.
But my noble friend did secure two important undertakings from the Government. The first was:
"If we find we are wrong"—
that is about the reduction to 80 per cent.—
"we shall have no hesitation in saying we are wrong and in going back"—
that is to 82½per cent. The second undertaking was:
"We will not reduce the extraction Tate below 80 per cent. until we are satisfied that it will not be detrimental from the nutritional point of view."
In the last eight months, since those undertakings were given, a number of official figures and facts have been published which suggest, first, that to go below 80 per cent. is unthinkable, and, second, that the Government were wrong and that we ought to go back as soon as we can to 82½ per cent. or, better still, 85 per cent., though that is not included in my Motion. Official figures that I shall give to support these claims are based on the seventh report of the
450
Scientific Adviser's Division, Ministry of Food, which was published in Nature on June 16 of this year, checked by a memorandum on Nutritive Values of War-time Foods, published by the Medical Research Council about the same time. I may say that I have all these reports with me.
But before proceeding I must recall that at the fag end of the debate of February 28, it leaked out that 80 per cent. is not an exact description of the present national bread. It is a euphemism. There is flour of 80 per cent. extraction milled in this country from home-grown and imported wheat, but before it is made into bread it is mixed, in proportions that are liable, for perfectly understandable reasons, to vary at different times and different places, with imported flour of 75 per cent. extraction. The resultant mixture, according to the answer to the question which I put on May 8, provided an over-all national flour for breadmaking of 79·25 per cent. extraction all over the country, except for what is known as "batch bread"—which is a Scottish mystery that I know nothing about—where it may fall to 78.6 per cent. In a sentence, the so-called 80 per rent. bread was, in May, nearer 79 per cent. bread, and the extraction rate had fallen to a level almost midway between Lord Wool-ton's nominal 85 per cent. and the actual 72 per cent. or 73 per cent. "poverty" white bread of pre-war days. There has been a good deal of increase of 75 per cent. flour in bread since then, and it is probably well below 79 per cent. now, though I have no figures.
Coming to the quality of the present 80 per cent. flour as compared with the 82½ per cent. flour of last autumn and the 85 per cent. flour of Lord Woolton, as expected there is no marked difference in the figures for proteins, fats, carbohydrates and calories. The 85 per cent. flour, however, I am assured by experts, contains a more valuable assortment of proteins than the 80 per cent. flour and this loss is something that cannot be stated in figures or corrected by enrichment or fortification. But now when we come to the protective elements, those minute substances which modern research has shown to be of such vital importance to human health, there is a much worse story to tell. Published figures do not all use the same terminology, and, in any event, comparisons in decimals of Inter-

451
national Units or the Greek µ grammes, usually spoken of as microgrammes or in parts per million, which all appear in these different documents, are difficult to put across. So, with expert aid, I have reduced the figures of loss of these elements to percentages, which are less scientific, but which, I think, are easier to follow.
Here they are. Vitamin B. The present 80 per cent. flour shows a loss of 10.2 per cent. in Vitamin B compared with the 82½ per cent. flour of last autumn and a loss of 19.2 per cent. compared with Lord Woolton's 85 per cent. flour. That, I am assured by experts, is very serious. Riboflavin in our present flour shows a loss of 20 per cent. compared with last autumn's flour and 381 per cent. compared with Lord Woolton's flour. The combination of these losses in Vitamin B and riboflavin was described in the leading article in the Lancet on June 2 as "disturbing." Nicotinic acid in our present flour has lost 8.3 per cent. compared with last autumn's flour but only 2½ per cent. compared with Lord Woolton's flour, but in that case I am told that the comparison is rather misleading because different grists were used. If the same grists had been used the loss of nicotinic acid would have been much greater.
Now as to iron. In our present flour it is reduced by no less than 16½ per cent. compared with last autumn's flour and 21.7 per cent. compared with Lord Woolton's flour. I am advised that that loss must be taken very seriously, especially when we remember that the reduction in anæmia was one of the principal benefits which followed the introduction of the 85 per cent. flour. It is particularly undesirable to take risks in this matter because, as stated in The Manual of Nutrition, 1945, a little book published by the Ministry of Food, "it is not easy to say how little iron could safely be eaten to avoid anæmia." Apart from these vitamins and minerals there are many other substances in wheat which are removed progressively in passing from a whole wheat to 70 per cent. flour. These substances are still unknown to scientists but they can be demonstrated to be nutritionally valuable by animal experiments. It is the presence, or possible presence, of these unknown substances
452
which provided so strong an argument against the transatlantic policy of a fortified and an enriched 70 per cent. flour, because obviously the millers can only put back what they know they have taken out. suppose we shall be reminded once more that high extraction flours contain more phytic acid than low extraction flours, but, as has often been mentioned, that is put right by fortifying with calcium, as was' done with great success in the 85 per cent. and I expect in the 82 per cent. flour too.
Besides the loss of the substances I have mentioned, about 60 per cent. of another rather useful substance has been extracted from the flour and that is bran. Lord Woolton claimed that this was an advantage. I gave his Lordship notice that I intended to raise this, but he was unable to be present. His main health reason in defence of the 80 per cent. bread was that it reduced the amount of bran and he indicated more than once "that bran is not a good thing for the human stomach." That astonished some of us. Most good things are bad in excess, but no expert with whom I have discussed this question—and I have discussed it with many—has said that the amount of bran in the 85 per cent. extraction loaf is detrimental to health. The 85 per cent. bread was supposed to be for an optimum loaf and it was recommended as such all through the war by the Medical Research Council. Is it conceivable that those experts should have agreed if the bran was detrimental to health? I cannot find a word of condemnation about bran in Sir Jack Drummond's book, The Englishman's Food. On the contrary, it contains several references to the value of bran as roughage, one of which was quoted by my noble friend Lord Glentanar in the last debate. Moreover, it is stated in the official Manual of Nutrition, 1945, that "cellulose is of some value for giving bulk to diet." Many of us have proved that for ourselves.
The net result, and I am coming to the end of these figures concerning the fall from 85 per cent. to 80 per cent., is the loss of high quality proteins, nearly one-fifth of Vitamin B, 38 per cent. of riboflavin, more than one-fifth of the iron, with a huge reduction of bran, involving the risk of an increase in anæmia, consti-

453
pation and a lot of consequential troubles. No nutritional advantage, so far as I know, is claimed, or can be claimed, for the 3o per cent. flour—nothing except the slightly whiter apearance. As the leading article in the Lancet of June 2 says:
"Whether the production of a whiter loaf with less bran balanced the loss of essential ingredients is so doubtful that the Government ought to consider a return to 85 per cent. extraction at least until Britain is once more enjoying the mixed diet of peace-time."
Turning from figures to facts, I invite your Lordships' attention to an illuminating report by Dr. Leslie Banks, M,P., and Mr. H. E. Magee, D.Sc., on the state of health and nutrition in the Channel Islands after the German occupation, appearing in the September issue of the Monthly Bulletin of the Ministry of Health and the Emergency Public Health Laboratory Service which works under the direction of the Medical Research Council. During the occupation milk was rationed, but the supply was not too bad. Potatoes, fats, meat, fish and sugar were all rationed and in short supply most of the time, especially in the last year of the occupation, when some of them gave out altogether. The following two points are of great importance to our subject to-day. Firstly, vegetables were unrationed and abundant, especially in Jersey, during the entire occupation, and were a staple food. Secondly, bread was rationed during most of the period and the extraction level was not 80 per cent. nor was it 85 per cent. but it was "practically l00 per cent. and it remained at this level until liberation." There is no mention of the addition of calcium to counter the effects of phytic acid.
What was the result? With your Lordships' permission I will quote a few extracts:
"As consumption at this level (2,000–2,500 calories per head daily) was considered sufficient to maintain health, it was not anticipated that we should find on the island anything approaching widespread malnutrition. These anticipations were fully realized."
"The first notable effect was, looseness of the bowels so general that practically no one escaped. This was sometimes severe."
I omit technical details. The report goes on:
"It would seem from the experiences of all the doctors on the island that these complaints were all varying degrees of the same conditions, and that it was due, primarily, to the unaccustomed coarseness of the diet. The severity of the symptoms abated after three months or so."
454
I omit more technical details, and the report then goes on:
"Constipation, which before the occupation had been one of the commonest complaints, almost completely disappeared."
After more technical details the report continues:
"The abatement in the symptoms of diarrhœa after the first few months was attributed mainly to the improvement in the quality of the bread. The bakers at first made a poor job of the high-extraction flour. They had little or no experience of it, and the loaves at first were moist, heavy, and rapidly became mouldy and sour. Gradually they improved their technique and after about three months they were able to produce, especially in Jersey, a really palatable bread."
That is the answer to the people who complain about brown bread being sour and not lasting. Its cause is in the baking, as I know, because from a country baker I have received for perhaps twenty-five years good bread without having to complain of any of these things. Now comes a most significant passage:
"The great majority of people apparently came to like the loaf very much, and the entire medical profession on both islands, as well as many others, mostly officials, regretted the disappearance of the old loaf and its replacement by white bread which came in with the relieving forces. Since liberation constipation has returned in a more aggravated form than before the occupation."
Then there is another passage:
"The incidence of appendicitis, colds and new cases of peptic ulcer was believed to have fallen considerably … in Jersey there was no epidemic of influenza."
I can find nothing about influenza in Guernsey.
As to the nutritional state on arrival of the Mission, it was
"clear there was very little wrong with the health and efficiency of the adult population."
As to the children there was no evidence of deficiency in any school in Jersey. Average heights and weights, however, were lower in 1943 than the average for 1930–40. But your Lordships must remember that many forms of food were in very short supply. The visitors—here I have something for my noble friend Lord Teviot, who is Chairman of the Committee on Dentistry—
"were much impressed with the excellent condition of the teeth of all the children in the island. Out of 100 children in one school whose teeth were examined, the total number of teeth, permanent and temporary, found to be carious was unusually small, probably not more than about twenty."

455
These experiments, carried out under force majeure on a whole poulation in order to avoid actual starvation, surely provide convincing confirmation of the value of high extraction of flour. We are not asking for 100 per cent. I am a 100 per cent. man myself, but I am not asking for it to-day. The Motion does not ask for anything but we would like, at any rate, to have a higher extraction than 80 per cent.
All the information I have given up to date seems to me to combine to show that the late Government were wrong and that we ought to go back to 82½ per cent. or 85 per cent. in accordance with the noble Lord, Lord Woolton's pledge. The present Government have to take that decision, like many other decisions, in peculiarly critical circumstances. Experience in 1918–19 showed that after a long, exhausting war the human race was exposed to two enemies as deadly as war itself—famine and pestilence. Those two grim spectres have now made their appearance in many lands. To combat them we have already thrown in reserves of food, reductions have been made in our rations, and I dare say there will be more. That surely makes it much more important to maintain and improve the quality of bread because, as was wisely realized in the Channel Islands, when the nutrient value of supplies as a whole falls off, that of bread, the food of the poor people, becomes more important than ever. That is a new factor in the situation which does not seem to have been foreseen. Perhaps it could not be foreseen when, more than a year ago, long before the sudden collapse of the enemy was in sight, whiter bread was adopted. I feel that this greatly increases the responsibility of the Government.
I understand that the late National Government set on foot inquiries into this bread position on the level of high officials, medical and nutrition experts and other interests concerned. I am not reflecting in the smallest degree on the bonâ fides of those who took part in the inquiry when I remind the present Government that the inquiries were initiated by a Government which, rightly or wrongly, was committed publicly to a policy of whiter bread. I suggest that that was a point to be taken into account by the officials. I am an old official
456
myself and I do not want to cast any reflection on officials, but they were bound to have that announcement in mind. One would suspect that they would feel obliged to direct their efforts to discover, not the best bread for the health of the people, as suggested in the Motion before the House, but what was the lowest bread extraction which would avoid disaster. In other words, I think they most have advised a minimum instead of an optimum loaf such as Lord Woolton's 85 per cent. bread was intended to provide.
I would earnestly ask the Government to bear this consideration in mind before rushing blindly into the policy of their predecessors, even if it involves some delay. I would also beg them to ask their medical and their nutritional experts to advise them what really is the optimum bread from the point of view of national health, even if, as in the case of milk and water, as shown in previous debates, it could not be reached yet. I would also ask that they should publish the opinion of their scientific advisers so that our people, who are becoming intensely interested in nutrition, should at last be told the truth, for when the 85 per cent. bread was announced in this House hardly a word was said about the health aspect. If there are overriding reasons why an optimum rate of extraction could not be achieved, the reasons should be given quite frankly. Again, as my noble friend Lord Horder suggested in the February debate—a suggestion that commended itself to the noble Lord, Lord Woolton—there should be a bread specification, or perhaps two bread specifications, an optimum as the target and another for the moment. I think it is only fair to say that the Government may require more time for the study of this question, because they have inherited great difficulties. The whiter bread policy had unfortunate consequences. So long as we held to 85 per cent. bread which was generally accepted we were safe, but when the rate fell, first to 82½ and then to 80 per cent. we were on a slippery slope. We risked a landslide. Hopes were raised among the mass of ill-informed people that the pre-war "poverty" white bread was going to be restored. The health aspects, which had never been properly explained, were forgotten.
All that was bound to react on the trade interests—millers and bakers for

457
example—the former of whom, though I do not think the latter, have, in my opinion, received a lot of unmerited abuse. As was made clear by Sir Malcolm Robertson, the Chairman of Spillers, and reported in The Times of June 7:
"The millers do not regard themselves as arbiters on dietetics and as in the past are ready and willing to use their best endeavours to manufacture flour of such a nature as may best conform with customers' demands and public health."
I have heard many tributes to their splendid work—from Lord Woolton among others, and I am pretty certain my noble friend Lord Llewellin will support him—in carrying out the 85 per cent. policy, but when the policy of whiter bread was introduced they were confronted with a new situation. For example, I learn from one authority on the subject that in order to obtain 85 per cent, of flour from average wheats the miller necessarily had to scrape into the Hour bag every particle of flour that he could find in the grain of wheat, including all the dietetically desirable substances. But at 80 per cent. he was in a position to choose whether he should please the baker, his voluntary customer, by milling for baking quality, or whether he should please the scientific expert by milling for dietetic merit. At 80 per cent. I am told, the two points of view—baking quality versus vitamins—are utterly opposed.
The miller can hardly be blamed if, in a world of competition and encouraged by the Government's announcements of a whiter bread policy, he sought to please the baker customer rather than the scientist, and I have recently heard that self-preservation has now compelled many firm, to do this. The extreme whiteness of the bread in many places bears that `out. The desire of the baker for whiter bread is, I gather, due to two causes. First, as we saw in the case of the Channel Islands, the baking of brown bread is much more difficult than that of white bread, and that is aggravated at the present time by the shortage of skilled labour. The second reason is that many bakers, themselves in competition with their rivals, naturally sought, in the present lack of guidance on the health aspect, to please the majority of their customers by producing the nearest approach to white bread that the law allows. Of one thing,
458
however, I have no doubt—namely, that if the Government find that 82½ or 85 per cent. extraction is necessary for public health, the interests of the millers and the bakers can be "developed in harmony with this policy"—to quote the phraseology of the Motion.
That is only the fringe of one small and most complicated aspect of the subject, crudely expressed as best I can in the time at my disposal. I have only mentioned it to show some of the difficulties of the problem which the Government have inherited. Of course, the first and indispensable thing is to stop the rot, and I should welcome even 80 per cent. as an instalment, though it is an absolute minimum with no margin of safety if, then, my noble friend in his reply cannot yet announce an advance beyond the present 80 per cent. bread—and I am confident he would not announce anything less—while regretting it, I shall not complain, provided he can assure us that it is not the Government's last word and that they intend to pursue their investigations with a view to providing an adequate margin of safety and with an optimum bread as the target, and that when they have satisfied themselves as to the truth about bread, they will spread it among the people as has been done with such admirable results in the case of milk, orange, tomato and carrot juice and cod liver oil, to say nothing of T.B., V.D., and the common cold. By those means a great deal has been accomplished, especially in giving young children a better start in life. But as they grow older their teeth are rotted by white flour and white sugar, both robbed of their most important elements without any compensation whatsoever.
Between the wars the Army suffered terribly in its recruiting, from 50 to 60 per cent. of the recruits being rejected every year for physical and medical reasons, mostly concerning teeth. A tremendous lot has got to be done for adults, especially in promulgating the facts. Get your nutrition right—and that will cost you very little—and a lot of other things will come right too. It will substitute prevention for cure. It will, in a short time, reduce considerably our inordinate expenditure on hospitals and curative measures. By reducing subnormal health, by raising the general standard of health, you will promote the

459
mens sana in corpore sano, and get less discontent and unrest.
All that was said in the debate on February 28, and all I have tried to add to-day, point to the need for a principle to govern nutrition, and the only possible principle is that the health of the population should govern the nutritional policy of the Government, as stated in the Motion. The idea originated with a very leading scientist on nutrition and it has much support in scientific circles. The acceptance of such a principle will provide a safeguard against the apathy and mistakes of the past. It should be a great help in the coming difficult months and years and provide a foundation of bedrock for the Government's efforts to give guidance to the people as to what is best. I submit the Motion from a Cross Bench point of view. I beg to move.
Moved to resolve, That the health of the population should be the guiding principle to govern the nutritional policy of the Government, and that in applying that principle to the case of bread, the health of the consumer should be the primary factor, and milling and other interests should be developed in harmony with this policy.—(Lord Hankey.)
3.30 p.m.
LORD HORDER: My Lords, I support the noble Lord's Motion, heart and soul, as it stands on the Order Paper. Indeed, it is very difficult to believe that there can be any disagreement both in respect of the major premise and the minor premise in the noble Lord's Motion. A great Tory statesman is credited with having said that "The health of the citizen is the nation's greatest asset." I feel sure that my right honourable friend and former colleague, the Leader of the House, who, I understand, will reply on the Government's behalf, will still consider, though it did emanate from a Tory, that Disraeli's dictum is worth following. Moreover, my Lords, the Government are surely committed to support this Motion. The gracious Speech from the Throne referred to the importance of nutrition as a contribution to the health and happiness of the nation. This country has signed, at the Hot Springs Conference, recommendations which deal very largely with matters of food in their
460
relation to nutrition. May I quote on these recommendations?
"A sound food and nutrition policy must be adopted by each Government if national diets are to be progressively improved, specific deficiency diseases eliminated, and good health achieved."
That is recommendation No. 7 of the Hot Springs Conference. Clearly we cannot escape the obligation inherent in the noble Lord's Motion.
But I should like to make a few not lengthy references to the minor premise in this Motion—namely, the part of it which relates to bread; and, with your Lordships' permission, I will take a step hack and quote my final contribution to the debate to which the noble Lord, Lord Hankey, referred, on February 28 this year. I said:
"Finally, what is it we want in regard to this vital food, bread? We want a bread that contains the highest possible content of natural nutriment, and we want a loaf which is of good quality and is generally acceptable to the citizen. To achieve this desirable object we need the combined efforts of the milling industry, the bakers, the research workers and the administrators. Although I am bound to say that I think the timing of the present drop of 5 per cent. in the extraction rate is open to criticism, I am prepared to consider that an 80 per cent. extraction rate may be justified in the light of our increased knowledge as applied to milling technique, but I do plead with His Majesty's Government not to make the extraction rate lower than this … I plead for one other thing, and that is, that an effort should be made by the Government to correct a very obvious anomaly—namely, that they should effect a specification of the loaf as a long-term post-war policy. The specification, obviously, will be changed from time to time, but let us have a post-war specification based upon all the knowledge at present available."
The Minister of Reconstruction who replied on behalf of the Government at that time was amenable to this appeal. The noble Lord, Lord Woolton, said:
"I liked the noble Lord's idea that we should have a specification, and that that should be published so that the country would know what scientific opinion was on the subject."
As the noble Lord, Lord Hankey, has reminded us, there has been, since that time, a conference on the post-war loaf, attended by representatives of the four Government Departments concerned—the Ministry of Health, the Ministry of Food, the Ministry of Agriculture, and the Department of Health for Scotland—and by representatives of the Medical Research

461
Council, of the milling and baking industries, and of the flour importers. To get all those people round the same table, for a full and frank discussion, was no mean achievement, and, if I may say so, I think we did some very useful work. I would like to attribute that fact—if it be a fact, as I think it is—to the wisdom and patience of that distinguished oivil servant, Sir Henry French, who was chairman of the conference. The noble Lord, Lord Hankey, has doubted whether, at the time of that discussion, we had before us, as our aim, the optimum loaf. I had already spoken in your Lordships' House about what ideal was. The ideal is the best bread, not the breed Mr. Smith likes and Mrs. Jones hates, but the best all-round bread for the nation. The work of the administrator has not been easy in this bread business. There are, on the one hand, the people who say: "We won the war; why cannot we have the bread we like?" On the other hand, there are people who say: "This is the best bread for you cat it." I do not think, up till now, that the administrator has done too badly, faced as he is with those extremes. But, as a result of this lengthy, careful discussion, I think, now, the Government, the administrator, and the Ministers are faced with not so difficult a problem because, behind them, they will have not only a consensus of opinion from scientists and medical men, and certainly not only from the milling industry, but—and they already have, I understand—recommendations sent unanimously from that very mixed body.
We found ourselves in agreement on three very important matters. First, that there could be specified, definitely, three essential token nutrients present in the wheat berry. Secondly, we were in agreement that the amount of those present in flour could be assayed without difficulty; they could be determined by the ordinary analyst. Thirdly, we were in agreement that a minimum quantity of each of these token nutrients should be required to be present if bread were to remain, what we all believe that it has been during the past four years, the main contributory factor in the nation's health. Assuming that the Government will decide to continue to regulate the character and quality of flour, and, therefore, of bread, after the present emergency control comes to an end—and
462
we must surely believe the Government will do this—then the Ministers have, as I said just now, a basis upon which they may provide regulations requiring the minimum amounts of these important substances to be present in flour.
At this round-table conference we discussed a number of other matters in connexion with flour and bread—whether, for example, granted the acceptance of the minima to which I have referred, these substances should come from the natural wheat berry, as at present in this country they do; that is, whether we should stick to our present policy of obtaining them from the natural source, or whether we should lower the extraction rate and make bread a medium for the dispensing of these substances artificially produced. Speaking for myself, I am a strong advocate of the natural sources of these substances. Evidence accumulates that the more we tinker with natural foods the less nutritious do they become. That does not refer only to the wheat berry.
It is true that our American friends have adventured considerably in this field. They are great adventurers, but their present attitude reveals quite convincingly to me that they consider that our policy in Britain is a sounder one than theirs has been. I should like to give your Lordships two short but illuminating quotations from no less prominent authorities than two successive Chairmen of the Food and Nutrition Board of the U.S.A. National Research Council. That is the Board which has made recommendations to the Federal Government which have been acted upon in this matter. The first pronouncement was made last year by Mr. Russell Wilder, who, with Mr. R. R. Williams, prepared a statement on the enrichment of flour and bread as against long extraction, considering these matters from the point of view of public health. In this country we obtain our essential nutrients on the long extraction principle. In the United States they have a low extraction rate, and a policy of reinforcement was applied to that.
Incidentally, these authors correct, as your Lordships will sec, a misunderstanding as to what it was that our American friends were after by adopting the enrichment method. They say:
"Enriched flour is not primarily designed to be a growth-producing food. The primary

463
purpose in enriching white flour is not to produce better bread, but rather to make use of white flour to distribute vitamins with which the diet as a whole is inadequately supplied."
The second statement, in my judgment, is a more telling one as to the change of view which has recently taken place in the American mind on this matter. Mr. Wilder was succeeded as Chairman of the Food Nutrition Board last year by Mr. Boudreau, who made this pronouncement in his report:
"It must be recognized that synthetic vitamins and vitamin concentrates are expedients that cannot form the basis for a sound nutrition programme. In the last analysis, good nutrition must be built upon a foundation of an optimum diet of natural foodstuffs."
In our conference we left this question of the source of the token nutrients open for further research. There is a number of questions which require fuller and more detailed investigation. We were unanimous in considering, however, that in the meantime, whilst the researches continued, we should stick to the 80 per cent. extraction, because it has synchronized with such good health in this nation. I ought to say that 80 per cent. extraction can give the minimal quantities of the essential nutrients to which I referred. But it may not do so; it can do so, but it may not. Whether it does give them in the hands of a certain section of the milling industry is another matter, and can be judged only by the constant surveys which take place and the analysis of specimens of bread obtained here and there in the country.
I say that it can, but may not, because I should like to remind your Lordships that there is no strict relation between the nutritive quality of flour and the extraction rate. The nutritive value of flour, and therefore of the loaf, is not a mere expression of a percentage rate of extraction. Our present knowledge of how these important nutrients are distributed in the wheat grain is of very recent origin; it is a matter more of months than of years; but it is sound knowledge. It has been confirmed again and again by different observers. This knowledge enables us to improve the technique of milling to such an extent that we know at which part of the milling process it is vital that the results should not be thrown away, or even given to pigs and poultry, and we know at what points it is relatively
464
immaterial to the human being whether that is done or not. In short, we can now, by the technique of milling, direct into the flour the things that we really want in order to make a good loaf. I agree that bran is useful, but there is coarse bran and fine bran. The coarser fibre can be diverted elsewhere, and in proportion as that is done the loaf is whiter and becomes more acceptable to the average citizen.
Finally, I should like to plead for publication of the result of this conference. I am not very optimistic that it will allay contention, which has been a serious factor, perhaps, in the whole of this bread question; but if it will not allay contention at least it will inform the citizen who wishes to know exactly what the position is. With the recommendations of this conference and the result of the debate in this House last February, and of Lord Woolton's successor, Lord Llewellin's effort at getting round the table the representatives of the bodies concerned, the Government can safely go ahead with courage and with confidence.
3.49 p.m.
VISCOUNT ADDISON: My Lords, if you do not mind, I should like to speak now. At the outset I should like to express our appreciation of the form of the Resolution which has been moved by the noble Lord, Lord Hankey. I am sure that we were all glad to hear also the informative speech of the noble Lord, Lord Horder, who was a member of the conference to which much reference has been made. In the first place, I should like to direct your attention to the wording of the Resolution, which is:
"That the health of the population should be the guiding principle to govern the nutritional policy of the Government …"
I think it is exceedingly well put, and I have no hesitation whatever in expressing complete agreement. I cannot imagine that any Government, doing their duty to the people and with any power over nutritional policy, could have any other purpose. I am very glad that the noble Lord has expressed it in such terse and emphatic words, and I may say at once that so far as that statement in principle is concerned I have not a moment's hesitation in accepting it.
It may, perhaps, be appropriate to say a word on the results of this country

465
having established a Ministry of Food during the war, and I am glad that we have the advantage of the presence of the noble Lord, Lord Llewellin, who had the distinction of holding the office of Minister for a considerable time. I think—quite apart entirely from the fact that the Ministry of Food has been responsible for providing the nation with its supplies—that this country owes a great debt to the Ministry of Food and its successive Ministers, for emphasizing the importance of nutritional policy as underlying its supply policy. That had a very great effect upon the health of the people, and I hope, at all events, and the Government hope, that we shall not be so foolish as to throw away the benefits which have already arisen through that policy. I am saying that we, the Government, regard it as an essential part of our national economy that there should be an organization which takes cognizance of the food that the people require, and makes it its business to see that that food is available for them in proper quantities. Therefore, the Government accept the necessity for the continuance of the Ministry of Food.
Perhaps it may be useful to make that statement at this time, because I know that there has been a certain amount of doubt in some quarters. No one knows better than the noble Lord who spoke last that it is very easy sometimes to draw the conclusion you want from insufficient premises. So, I am not going to pretend that the whole of the improvements in national health—and they are very remarkable—that the war has witnessed are entirely due to our food policy. Nobody would suggest that—at least no careful person. But, at the same time, I think it is fair to claim that the scientific direction of our rationing policy must have contributed very largely indeed to the maintenance and improvement of the national health. That certainly is a safe statement. The improvement really has been very remarkable.
Now bread, of course, is not the only food to which the Ministry of Food has added other ingredients. I have in a report which is before me a number of illustrations of that process. I do not call the process doctoring, it is a process of what I call the addition of materials that it is advantageous should be there—that is how I would put it. For instance, vitamins have been added to margarine and I have no doubt that they have
466
greatly improved its nutritional value. You could not, of course, describe margarine as a natural food product, but still, as I say, it has been improved. And our health statistics, at all events, largely influenced by our improved feeding, have shown a remarkable improvement notwithstanding the disabilities of the war period. I am quite sure that we owe a great deal of this to the management of our food supplies coupled with scientific knowledge applied to the rationing and distribution. I hope that this country will become accustomed to regard the existence of a Ministry of Food, performing these and other functions, as an essential and necessary part of our national economy. We are only at the beginning now; we shall learn a lot as time goes on.
Now I come to the particular case of bread. I deliberately refrained from making any observations until the House had had the advantage of listening to the noble Lord, Lord Horder, who, himself, was a member of the conference which I believe the noble Lord opposite was responsible for initiating. And I would like, at this point, to pay a tribute to the noble Lord for initiating that conference. I have here a typewritten copy of its report. It was issued quite recently. It is dated October 11, so it has the advantage of being fresh. The noble Lord who has just spoken was an important member of that conference as one of—shall I say?—the team from the Ministry of Food. Both Lord Horder and Lord Hankey have asked that this report should be published. Well, so far as we can, we want this matter to be removed from the realm of, shall we say, guess work into one of greater certainty, so we have no hesitation whatever in accepting the suggestion that the report should be published. When it is published we shall all be able to see what these scientists and other people have found out, what they do not know and what they say they do know. Then, perhaps, we shall get this discussion on, what we may call, a more sustainable level, because, quite frankly, I think it has been encumbered by a good deal of guess work—to put it no higher than that.
Now here is the report. In the conference the Ministry of Food had as representatives the noble Lord, Lord Horder, and a number of eminent gentlemen

467
including Sir Jack Drummond, the famous scientist, and Dr. T. Moran. The representatives of the Ministry of Health included Sir Wilson Jameson. The Medical Research Council was represented by Sir Edward Mellanby, the Department of Health for Scotland by Dr. Andrew Davidson, and, quite properly, the milling and baking industries were also very adequately represented—very powerfully represented I should say looking at the list of names—as was also the National Association of Flour Millers. Well, here is the report and, as I say, we propose to publish it. I think that the noble Lord, Lord Horder, has expressed the matter very well. I was not able to take clown his words but I hope that noble Lords will take note of them when they appear in the published report. He defined the kind of loaf that people require; and this Committee inquired not only into that but also into the kind of loaf which would be good for people. I have here the figures giving the amounts of nutrients in the flour as now made, and in the vital foods to which the noble Lord referred. I notice that one of them was decidedly smaller in quantity in the 80 per cent. extraction than it was in the higher extraction. He called it riboflavin. It is available and is normally taken in other foods, so the fact that it was not present in the full quantity required in the 80 per cent. flour is not of itself an objection to that quality of flour, because it is obtained from other sources.
Taking it generally I see that the committee, or the conference as it called itself, inquired into the many technical questions which were associated with the proper milling of the grain and, as the noble Lord has explained, of securing that there were left in the flour the things which were valuable and that the things which were important were not thrown out. They recommend at the end of the report that a number of researches should be made and continued, and they give quite a long list of problems. My right honourable friend the Minister of Food authorizes me to say that he will give every help in furthering these researches. The conference was unanimous in recommending that in the meantime the present national flour should be maintained with the improvements and additions which are embodied in it in accordance with the present improved methods of milling. That being the case,
468
we propose to accept that recommendation. My noble friend authorizes me to say that just as be welcomes this report, so he welcomes the continued inquiry. So we shall persist in accepting as the guiding principle of the Ministry of Food that the health of the people should guide its policy. I have much pleasure in accepting the Resolution.
House adjourned during pleasure.
House resumed.

ROYAL COMMISSION.
The following Bills received the Royal Assent:

Indian Franchise,

Coatbridge and Springburn Elections (Validation).

House adjourned during pleasure.
House resumed.
4.25 p.m.

NUTRITIONAL POLICY.
Debate resumed on Lord Hankey's Motion.
LORD TEVIOT: My Lords, I feel, now that we have heard the very satisfactory statement by the noble Viscount, Lord Addison, that there is little more to be said, except to mention certain points which I do not think have been touched on yet. I am sorry the noble Viscount is not here at the moment because I wanted to have the opportunity, which is the first I have had, of congratulating him on the very high office he now occupies in your Lordships' House. I recollect that when this matter was introduced to this House by myself last February he showed great sympathy towards the ideas then expressed in the debate, and supported us most strongly.
Now the word "nutritional" is mentioned in this Motion, and we know perfectly well that proper nutrition does bring health. It is probable—in fact, I think it is undoubted—that within nutrition the question of bread looms very largely. Bread is, in varying degrees, the staple food of all our people. It is interesting how those of us who have been working together on this subject now for some time are criticized. We are called

469
"cranks." The other day some wiseacre said: "I like this white bread because it is clean. It must be clean because it is white." I mention that with great respect to the Lord Chancellor's gown. It seems to me that the inference to be drawn from what he said was that, because wholemeal or high-extraction bread was not white, therefore it was not clean. That is the sort of ridiculous statement in the shape of propaganda that is going about.
I heard just now as I walked out, the question: "Why do you wish us to be deprived of white bread?" We have over and over again emphasized that we do not desire to stop anybody eating any sort of bread or anything else he wishes, but what we do want is that those of us who wish to have bread which, in our view, is the best for the health of the people, shall have an opportunity of buying it. I mentioned last February—and I do not want to repeat too much of what I said then—that wherever I go I try to obtain this bread. I occasionally find some baker who makes it, but unless I am in his shop very early I have no chance at all of buying any. What I want to see, and what we all want to see, is that this other bread—what we look upon as the real bread, which does bring health and strength to people—should be available for all those who want it.
Then, in particular, I would like the Government, if they would, to consider, wherever they feed the children, and wherever bread is supplied for that purpose, that the highest extraction bread should be supplied. We hear a great deal about this roughage question. I asked my noble friend Lord Horder, some considerable time ago, what roughage meant. He said that roughage was got from meal which is coarsely ground. I get my meal from a particular mill. It is 100 per cent. extraction, but it is very finely ground, and there is no roughage in it at all. Therefore, to talk about roughage as detrimental to this wholemeal 100 per cent., is just nonsense, as I know from personal experience, and as does my family, who also eat it.
There is one suggestion I want to make to the Government. If they will look up the records, I think they will find that, in the last few years, a great many of the old-fashioned stone-grinding mills have applied for licences to start up again,
470
and I think they will find that a very small number has been granted licences. I feel that there we might get an opportunity of starting up some of these old mills throughout the country, which there is a desire to do. An interesting thing has just happened. A friend of mine, who is very interested in this question, has written to me to say that a certain firm here are producing a small mill that one can have in one's house. It will work either through a power plug in the wall or by hand. It is quite cheap, and I am looking forward to the day, when, perhaps, the housewife will give up the tin opener, to a certain extent, and employ her time in becoming her own miller, and indeed, her own baker, because I am sure her children will benefit enormously therefrom.
I am going to make an appeal which I hope will get to the right quarter. We all know that, if we get our way and the nation turns to this high extraction bread, it will interfere with a great deal of business in the milling industry. I make the strongest possible appeal to the millers of this country that, instead of rather taking the view—that which, I think, was mentioned in the speech of my noble friend Lord Hankey—that their job was to supply the people with what they thought they liked, they should really get down to it, and see if they cannot produce, in a satisfactory form, a palatable and satisfactory flour which is of high extraction, instead of what, to all of us, is this very unsatisfactory starchy stuff. Let us consider this from a slightly diffferent angle. We are told that our bodies are composed of water, potash, iron and phosphates. But there is something else in these bodies of ours which gives us life and which cannot be defined, and so there is in everything that produces life. I am told by my friends the scientists, that there are these vitamins, plenty of them, and many yet to be discovered; and that there are any number of trace elements, which they know are there. So, my Lords, is it not justifiable to think how dangerous it must be to interfere with nature's products in the shape of the grain?
To turn for a moment to the question of the hospitals, I, as many of your Lordships do, no doubt, visit King Edward's Hospital as a layman. When I visited one of our children's hospitals—I will not mention the name—which has a convales-

471
cent home in the country, I saw some terrible sights there. There were little children, of not more than six or seven years of age, with arthritis. When you see that sort of thing, you ask yourself what is wrong; why is this happening? It brings one back all the time to the question of diet nutrition, to feeding generally, not only of the children themselves, but of the mothers before them. Therefore I do hope, from what my noble friend Lord Addison said, that this matter is really going to be taken up very seriously.
I am not going to say anything more except to report to you what was said to me only the day before yesterday by a friend of mine in Edinburgh, who is one of the great men on the subject of blood transfusion. He wrote to me and gave me a lot of other details. His figures entirely corroborate what the noble Lord, Lord Hankey, says about the depreciation in the amount of various vitamins and iron, and so on, in the bread since the reduction in the extraction. The following is what my friend in Edinburgh said about blood transfusion:
"In previous years, the transfusion service here"—
that is in Edinburgh—
"has found that the number of blood donors rejected because of low hæmoglobin levels, decreased in the early spring. This year, instead of a decrease, there has been an increase in the number of rejections necessary"—
for this reason that I mentioned. The decrease was particularly marked when the 85 per cent. extraction flour was originally introduced. We anticipated that something would happen fairly soon as a result of this lowering of the extraction rate, and here it is; it has happened already with regard to this particular matter. Bread may have accounted for some of the other things mentioned by my noble friend, but there may have been other causes. When we find, however, that since the extraction rate has been reduced these very significant things have happened, we are bound to take notice of the fact.
That is all that I have to say, except that I hope that the Government, having made this very satisfactory statement to-day, will get on with the job, because I am sure that all noble Lords who have anything to do with the health of the people, with hospitals and so on, are very
472
perturbed to see the increase in general sickness throughout the whole country. I feel sure that those of us who have spoken to-day are of opinion that enormous benefit can be derived from improved nutrition and in particular from a better quality and a higher extraction bread. I support the Resolution.
4.42 p.m.
LORD GLENTANAR: My Lords, those of us who have supported, and are supporting, Lord Hankey's Resolution are, as my noble friend Lord Teviot has just said, greatly encouraged by what the noble Viscount, the Leader of the House, has said in accepting so generously and in such enthusiastic terms, if one may say so, the Resolution moved by Lord Hankey. I should like to put before your Lordships a few points in this connexion which perhaps have not been specifically emphasized to-day. This Resolution is in two parts; it contains the general and the particular, a major and a minor premise. I should like to say a word about the first or general part of the Resolution first of all.
Now that this Resolution has been accepted by the Government, there are several of His Majesty's Ministers who will be directly concerned in following it; primarily the Minister of Food, but also the Ministers of Health and Agriculture. Finance and economics may come into the picture too, and one can but hope and believe that the circumstances in which we find ourselves to-day, when we are striving to buy as little as possible abroad and also to avoid the use of shipping space as much as possible, will produce a state of affairs which will not be in opposition to the policy in question.
With regard to the agricultural considerations, I should like to call attention to the fact that there is evidence to show that certain essential ingredients in foodstuffs are adversely affected by the methods by which they are grown as well as by the methods by which they are processed. Our achievements in agriculture, as in many other directions, are too often gauged by us in terms of quantity rather than quality. I feel that in these matters we should not rely too much on size and bulk, but rather on the qualities which these products contain. With that end in view, we should be guided more by biological tests than by chemical and other physical tests. After all, it is the feeding

473
quality as it affects man and beast which counts. I think that there is a deep scientific basis for the old proverb that the proof of the pudding is in the eating. The bulk of our agricultural produce is undoubtedly increased by the methods which are now popular, and which are advocated by the Government and by our agricultural colleges; but in the minds of many there are grave doubts whether these methods now in use do produce foodstuffs of the best quality. Another matter which comes into our purview here is the use of dyestuffs. I would only refer to such things as margarine, which tries to lock like butter by being dyed yellow and kippers, that try to look as if they had been very adequately smoked when in potent of fact they are dyed; and dyes are used which we are not at all sure may not be injurious to health, although that may never have been proved.
Corning now to the minor premise and to this question of bread, I should like to support the plea which has been made by my noble friend Lord Teviot, that natural wholemeal bread should be readily available. Those of us who have tried to buy it know that it is most difficult to buy wholemeal bread; in fact, it has become a luxury article. Surely white bread should be a luxury article, and not a bread which we know contains all that it should contain. In connexion with specifications of the content of bread, which we are glad to hear we are going to see more of in future, I notice that we get fewer details given us in the Ministry of Food report as to these various small but essential elements. I should like to refer to vitamin E. In Sir Jack Drummond's book The Englishman's Food, which has been referred to already in this debate, he says:
"It has now been discovered that the type of sterility clue to vitamin E deficiency is commoner in women in England than had been suspected. This is not surprising when one beats in mind that the best sources of the vitamin are wheat germ and green vegetables and that large numbers of the poorer people to-thy live on diets consisting chiefly of white bread (which does not contain the germ)"—
that is, the old pre-war white bread—
"aid containing very small amounts of green vegetables or salads."
That was written just before the war, but I see no reason why it should not still be relevant. When we get these specifications, I hope that the Government will see
474
that they contain all the details which they ought to contain.
With regard to the two successive reductions in the extraction rate which. Lord Hankey has described so well to us, I should like to support him by saying that from the figures to which he referred, and possibly from others, I have been assured by a most competent expert that in point of fact the extraction rate to-day is not higher than 78 per cent. When we are talking, therefore, about a certain line which shall not be crossed, I hope in future we may be assured that when a figure is mentioned we can take it as a real one.
There are two policies which His Majesty's Government may in their wisdom be inclined to follow: a short-term policy, which is the one referred to mainly to-day, and a long-term policy. The long-term policy should, I suggest, tend to educate the people of this country to a better understanding of matters of nutrition and diet. But in the present circumstances, when food controls are still necessary, the period during which they may continue to be necessary is the period which I feel should set the limit to the short-term policy. As long as the Government have the responsibility, or assume the responsibility, of controlling foodstuffs, then there is something to be said for arbitrarily fixing the specification of the bread which is to be commonly provided.
I would urge that the bulk of the flour which is to be provided during this period—that is the short-term period—should be of a high nutritional value. At the same time, I maintain that every opportunity should be given to millers, to bakers and to all concerned to provide sufficient wholemeal bread to meet the demand. In point of fact, that is not the case at the moment. Also, although I am a strong supporter of wholemeal bread, I would suggest that white flour might be provided in small quantities for special purposes, but rationed if necessary. This, of course, would inflict no hardship. If there is going to be a luxury article in the way of bread let it be white bread, and let the other breads which are important nutritional breads be in full supply for those who want them, either in the proportion of extraction which the Government decide, and according to the specification to be decided, or in their natural 100 per cent. form.

475
Just one word as to the long-term policy. As it might cover the proper education of the people of this country in matters of nutrition, may I be allowed to refer to another country where the standard in nutrition, before the war, was exceptionally high, and where every kind of foodstuff of good quality, every kind of bread, was most readily obtainable? That country was Norway. Through the kindness of officials of the Royal Norwegian Government, who were resident here during the war, I have been able to get some particulars showing how this was achieved. To put it as shortly as possible this was how it was done. The milling industry, which was partly State controlled and, partly run by private enterprise, was allowed to produce whatever kind of bread it liked and to supply the popular demand. At the same time, medical and scientific men of the country embarked upon a programme of education, through the Press, by means of public meetings and in every other way possible, whereby, over a long period—I am told that it took ten years—the public were taught what was good to eat. Automatically through this system of education, which had the blessing of the Governments of the time, the public came to ask more and more for what they wanted and what, at the same time, was good for them. Through this a proper condition of affairs was achieved in which no kind of coercion and no kind of Government control was necessary. I would urge on His Majesty's Government that there should be no attempt to force the people of this country to eat any particular kind of bread, but rather that we should produce the best that is possible alongside what they may fancy at the moment, and, in course of time, surely enough, if the facts are put on the table, and if the truth is allowed to become known, the people of this country will choose what is good for them.
I will not say any more on this subject now, as much has already been said upon it, but those of us who have this matter at heart look forward with confidence to the results of the steps which His Majesty's Government have told us they are about to take and to the day when, through a better understanding of these matters, not only will all kinds of health-giving and natural foodstuffs be available
476
for those who want them, but the people of Great Britain will ask for them because they know that they are right things to eat.
4.57 p.m.
LORD SEMPILL: My Lords, I gladly join with those of your Lordships who have already spoken in this debate in warmly supporting my noble friend Lord Hankey's Resolution. We owe him a deep debt of gratitude for the pertinacity he has ever shown in this matter. He has never given up the fight for high extraction bread. My noble friend asked your Lordships to support him in his endeavour to persuade His Majesty's Government to go back to nothing under 85 per cent. extraction. This will be but a step towards what my noble friend Lord Horder calls the target at which we are aiming—namely, 100 per cent. We are deeply grateful to the noble Viscount who leads your Lordships' House for the words of encouragement which he has uttered to-clay and for the fact that this important report, to which he has referred, is about to be published.
Your Lordships have listened to a number of very interesting speeches, and I would refer those who would like to have more detail to that excellent little article which has already been mentioned by Lord Hankey, "The Political Loaf," which was printed in the British Medical Journal on March 17. I do not take that journal myself, but I was fortunate enough to receive a copy of the article in question from my noble friend who has just spoken. Possibly others of your Lordships may have been equally favoured. Of all the Motions submitted to your Lordships, surely none could be more urgent than this which vitally affects the national health. May I just recount a few facts to your Lordships which came to my attention during the war when meeting a number of the leaders of the medical side of the two Services in connexion with a matter which had come up for discussion in your Lordships' House. We had a meeting and while we were waiting for a certain document to be typed, I took the opportunity of asking the medical experts gathered round what were the main difficulties they experienced with the young people of both sexes who were joining up. With one voice they said "teeth," and questioned as to the reason for bad teeth or for no

477
teeth at all, they said with equal unanimity "bread and sugar." I have received in the intervening period from these men, through whose hands countless thousands pass, a dissertation on the evil; of poor bread, and not only too much sugar, but a lack of the pure product which the Empire is capable of producing in such large quantities.
Perhaps some of your Lordships may have read that official but horrific report on teeth by my noble friend Lord Teviot. It gives more than ample support to the views of the medical men whom I had the pleasure of meeting on the occasion to which I have just referred. A unique illustration of the importance of right feeding on general health comes from St. Columba's College, near Dublin. This college, founded nearly 100 years ago by Dr. Sewell, of Exeter College, Oxford, was founded with the object of being self-supporting. There is a farm of several hundred acres and a large part of the work is done by the boys out of school hours and as an enthusiastic spare-time activity. The land is manured with natural humus; nothing else is used; and so the vitamin content and general nutritional value of the products of this land is the highest obtainable. Bread is made from 100 per cent. extraction flour ground from wheat grown on the farm and the average daily consumption of calories per head is around 4,000. This all reflects in the mo at remarkable way on the general health of the boys, of whom there are some 150 in this community. Dental health is very good indeed, and in fact there is an entire absence of caries which would almost make it possible for these boys to compete successfully with the boys, of Tristan da Cunha, which is the one bright spot in the British dental world, as your Lordships are aware. Talking of islands, I might refer to the islands on the west coast of Scotland, which until fairly recently never knew and never required a dentist. Now one of these islands gives full-time employment to dentists and the reason for that is the trouble arising in teeth from poor bread. In connexion with the experiment at St. Columba's, there is a school not very far from London which is doing the same thing.
As has been illustrated by other speakers, a growing number of us want to get brown bread. The great problem is
478
how to get it. Members of His Majesty's Government in your Lordships' House have often told me of their personal difficulties in getting brown bread and have asked me how to overcome them. I suggest that those who wish to obtain good brown bread, if not 100 per cent. extraction at least something near to it, meet so many obstacles which the majority of them have neither the time nor the energy to overcome. My noble friend Lord Glentanar, who preceded me in this debate, and I come from the same part of Scotland and we strive to obtain for our households good bread and spurn the insipid compound which masquerades as "the staff of life." My noble friend, more able than I in these things, has discovered a small co-operative bakery in Ballater on Deeside, and through his introduction I have been able to obtain a first-class wholemeal bread of something like over 90 per cent. extraction from this bakery, which is forty miles from my home. Perhaps my noble friend Lord Teviot has had similar difficulty himself.
But that is not enough. I have taken to heart Lord Teviot's suggestion and obtained and installed a small hand-powered mill into which I feed wheat grown on our own land from which we make bread and oats which produce oat cakes. Having no electric power the mill is turned by hand. I have taken the opportunity of bringing to your Lordships' House, or rather to the tea room, a sample of the bread I have baked, and I shall be pleased to regale those of your Lordships who have participated in the debate and helped Lord Hankey in achieving his object. I mentioned this matter to that distinguished expert, Sir John Orr, and he said he would like to come over and borrow my mill. I said, "Gladly, but have you not got one of your own?" "No," he replied, "I make it with a coffee-grinding machine and it takes too long to produce enough flour."
The whole question is, however, a vital one and as a people we are facing the greatest task with which we have ever been faced. That we will go through with it and achieve the apparently impossible is certainly not in doubt, but if we are to do so we must see to it that we make available good food produced from humus-fed soil and not processed in such a manner as to lessen, if not to destroy, its dietetic value. We are faced to-day with serious trouble in those industries

479
which demand maximum physical output. Those troubles are largely psychological and are the result of long periods of living on denatured and processed foods. Serve out good food—good in the dietetic sense—and within twelve months Britain would commence to be physically reborn, and to-day's industrial crises, which come and go, would but seldom arise. Surely our motto should be to get away from murdered food taken from poisoned soil.
In the eighteenth century Scotland was harried by Englishmen of one kind or another. There was one who was very well known, General Wade, who carried fire and sword to our land and tried, un- successfully, to quell the spirit of our Highland forbears. Among other things he built many military roads and there is one which runs across the hills from the head of Strathdon to Tomintoul. In the middle of it you may find a stone on which this curious phrase is engraved: "If you had seen this road before it was made you would go down on your knees and bless General Wade." What a ridiculous idea! Obviously it is the invention of some Englishmen, because no Scotsman has ever gone down on his knees to an Englishman. But all rules may have an exception and when my noble English friend is, as I feel sure he will be, successful, all these Scots will figuratively do that which we would never do for General Wade.
5.10 p.m.
LORD LLEWELLIN: My Lords, this is the first occasion on which I have had the honour of addressing your Lordships' House. It is true that I have had some practice in another place but if I fall into any error of address—if when turning to the right or left, trying to think of a word, I say "Mr. Speaker" to fill in the gap—I hope I may be forgiven. I hope that your Lordships will think it right and proper that one who held the very important and responsible office of Minister of Food at the time when this new loaf was introduced should have the opportunity of explaining why he moved the Government of that time to take that step.
I had the opportunity from the steps of the Throne of listening to the debate in your Lordships' House last February and although, of course, I was not in a position to take any active part, I was well
480
represented by my noble friend Lord Woolton, who had been my predecessor at the Ministry of Food. The noble Lord, Lord Hankey, said there were most remarkable repercussions of that debate through the country as a whole. I should think that of all Government Departments which are closely in touch with feeling in the country, the Ministry of Food is preeminent. It has a vast organization, with food control committees right through the country, all of whom can communicate with the Ministry at any time, and the chairman of each committee has access to the Minister himself. Moreover, if anything goes wrong in the matter of food it is certain to get into every newspaper. I may say, however, that the repercussions of the debate in your Lordships' House last February did not appear to penetrate down the corridor to the other place because no member of the House of Commons—and some of them are fairly closely in touch with opinion in the country—ever raised this matter in that House or gave me an opportunity of dealing with it there.
The position was this. When I arrived at the Ministry of Food I found that the Cereals Research Station at St. Albans was doing most valuable experimental work on the extraction rate of flour. That station was set up by the millers, and with their full concurrence it was taken over by the Ministry of Food in the early days of the war. It was run as a Ministry of Food concern under the immediate direction of Dr. Moran, a very able scientist and nutritionist, who has given great service to the Ministry of Food, and under the general supervision of Sir Jack Drummond, who I think has done more for the good feeding of the people of this country during the days of the war than any other man I know, and who has also recently, I am glad to say, been of considerable assistance to the countries of liberated Europe because he went to the Continent to advise our Dutch and other friends as to what they should do in the conditions in which they found their people when liberated.
I also found that my noble friend Lord Woolton, my predecessor, had taken a personal interest in these experiments. I went to the station to see them for myself, taking with me my noble friend Lord Horder, who was chief medical adviser to the Minister of Food. The staff were I obviously very keen, obviously very

481
good, and their experiments had already shown that they could preserve practically the same nutritional qualities with a lower extraction rate than the then existing rate of 85 per cent. It was thought, before these experiments Lock place, that vitamin B1 was associated with the whole germ of the wheat, but from these experiments it was found that that vitamin and indeed most of the others were really highly concentrated in part only of the germ and that this particular, fraction of the wheat could be segregated during milling in such a manner as to ensure that by far the greater part of it went into the flour. That was the extent of the new discovery made by this valuable research, and on that report naturally one wanted to sec that the people got the benefit of these experiments. The extraction rate, as was announced at the time, was raised to 85 per cent. as a war-time necessity. It was primarily introduced because of shipping difficulties, and although before introducing it my predecessor had naturally consulted his nutritional advisers as to whether it was a good extraction rate for the loaf, the primary reason for it, as he always said, was shipping necessity. Having had this report and having taken advice from my nutritionists in the Ministry, I took the step—here my noble friend Lord Hankey was perhaps not quite fully informed—of having these experiments, which had been successful in the research station, tried out on a commercial basis at a mill. That was before any report was asked for from any Government Committee.
LORD HANKEY: I ought to say that I took my information from Lord Woolton's speech.
LORD LLEWELLIN: I have forgotten whit exactly my noble friend Lord Woolton said, but I was the man who actually gave the instructions and saw the reports from the mill, and I know that was done very early. I hope my noble friend Lord Hankey will take that from me.
LORD HANKEY: Certainly.
LORD LLEWELLIN: This mill produced a flour at the 80 per cent. extraction rate with results equally as good as those at the research station. Then, naturally, as the Minister of Food has nutritional advisers all round him, they
482
were asked for their advice. It would be a foolish thing, when the Minister is considering the extraction rate, to embark on any change without consulting his nutritional advisers. The Standing Committee at the Ministry on nutrition problems was the appropriate body and was consulted. The members of it were asked to advise on the effect of lowering the rate from 85 to 80 per cent. as well as on lowering it to only 82½. When I received their advice, I submitted proposals to my colleagues in the Government and the change was eventually made. I myself very much wanted not to take two bites at this cherry, which I appreciated some of your Lordships and others might think to be rather a sour one, and I would much have preferred to have gone direct from the 85 per cent. down to the 80 per cent., which was the policy approved before ever we descended to 82½ per cent. But in the technical process of turning the mills over, so as to be able to work this new process and secure that this part of the germ really reached the flour and did not go into the offal, it was necessary, for technical reasons, to go from 85 to 82½ per cent. at first, and then take the second step at a later stage.
My noble friend Lord Teviot has said, both to-day and on the last occasion, that we do not want to prevent anyone eating any bread he wishes, and my noble friend Lord Glentanar followed in very much the same words. But that is what we are doing. We are doing that by the 80 per cent. extraction order and by the 85 per cent. extraction order. While that old statutory rule and order was on the Statute Book it was illegal to mill flour at a lesser extraction rate than 85 per cent., and it is now illegal to mill flour at a lesser rate than 80 per cent.; so anybody now who wants to get 70 or 72 per cent. bread cannot get it, because we are forbidding it by statutory rule and order.
When you are coming towards the end of a war and when you (as indeed I did, as Minister of Food) want to sec that some of these great nutritional advances that that Ministry made during the war remain with us in time of peace—when that is your ambition, it is no good holding on too long to the kind of bread that people do not really like, otherwise you will get pressure not only from the millers but from the bakers and the general populace as well. That is a very vital factor that any Minister of Food has to consider when

483
he is deciding what is to be the best bread for the people.
LORD GLENTANAR: May I correct the noble Lord? What I said was that I think I am right in saying that during the first period, the short-term period, the Government were bound to maintain bulk production of whatever they thought best, but in the long-term period we look for freedom.
LORD LLEWELLIN: I am sorry if I misquoted the noble Lord, because I take it he expresses what he meant and I am afraid I did not take down all his words. At any rate, the position is that a lot of people think that the high extraction rate is popular. From the details which the noble Lord read out of the results of the feeding in the Channel Islands under the German occupation, I could not think of any much more uncomfortable position in which to live than that complete reversal of constipation which was described in those documents.
LORD HANKEY: For three months only.
LORD LLEWELLIN: I can assure your Lordships that whatever a lot of sedentary workers may think—and perhaps we in this House can put ourselves into that category—a lot of manual workers are not at all enamoured of high extraction flour, and that certainly applies to the miners. The right course for any administrator to take is to try and get the best average loaf that he can, especially when, as at the present time, it is going to be enforced by statutory rule and order. So it came about that it was decided to introduce this 80 per cent. extraction rather than the 85 per cent. According to reports made to me, there was not any appreciable falling off in the nutritional value to the people, taking into account, as you must always do, that people do not live on bread alone, and other things are provided for them.
There is not the slightest doubt that the 80 per cent. flour keeps far better. It is not for nothing that the Royal Navy has insisted throughout the whole war that whatever the rate of extraction of the flour, it shall have the real white flour in the ship's stores of every ship commissioned for sea service. And although the noble Lord is shaking his head in
484
dissent, I can tell him, from my experience as Minister of Food, that the 85 per cent. extraction flour does not keep as well as the 80 per cent. extraction flour. The latter flour certainly bakes better. At the Ministry's Cereal Research Station at St. Albans we collected loaves from practically every bakery in the country in succession, so that they could be tested, and I was quite appalled when I went round that research station to see how many bad loaves there were. There was not the slightest doubt that there was a tendency, with the 85 per cent. extraction flour, for a waste of bread, which either went to people's chickens or was wasted entirely, which was not a good idea from the point of view of the Minister of Food.
LORD WALKDEN: Can the noble Lord say after how many days this bread deteriorates?
LORD LLEWELLIN: It depended on how it was baked. From some bakeries it would hardly last for 12 or 24 hours. You found thoroughly bad loaves from some of those bakeries, and there is not the slightest doubt that this bread did not keep as well as the 80 per cent. extraction bread, which certainly makes better cakes. You could not make a decent piece of toast with the 85 per cent. bread.
LORD HANKEY: You can make the best toast with 100 per cent. bread.
LORD LLEWELLIN: There, evidently, we disagree, but, at any rate, whatever anybody may say, we got a large number of letters at the Ministry of Food welcoming the change, and very few, indeed, deploring it. It also gave me an extra 325,000 tons of offal in order to implement the policy of more pigs and more poultry. I knew we should be short of meat and fats, and one of the most valuable animals for producing meat and fats is undoubtedly the pig. We could not have gone on with that policy unless I had had this windfall, and unless I had given full weight to the pigs. I thought there was some sense in the Prodigal Son coming home to a fatted calf when he had been living on husks for some time, as he had been living. I still believe it better to extract the germ and the better part of the wheat grain for the human being. A certain percentage of the husky part is in the 85 per cent. extraction loaf.
This change to the 80 per cent. was only a prelude to another step which I

485
was determined to take, and to which the noble Viscount, the Leader of the House, referred this afternoon. I should like to thank him—perhaps someone will convey my thanks to him—for the kind things he said about me, and about the setting up of this post-war loaf conference. I think it was a good thing to do. There was a great risk that we should not get the nutritionists and the millers to sit down together. A number of the nutritionists think that the millers are crooks, and a number of the millers think that the nutritionists are cranks. At any rate, we did succeed in getting a very representative conference together.
I remember talking it over with the then Permanent Secretary of the Ministry of Food, Sir Henry French. Perhaps, at this period, as he has just retired from that office, I might pay my tribute to the wonderful work Sir Henry has done in feeding the people of this country ever since the early days of the War Food Plans Department and right up to the time he retired in December last. Sir Henry asked me of whom I was thinking as chairman. I told him that I knew of only one man who could do that job, and that, if he would accept it, he was for it. So he became chairman of this conference, and I was delighted to hear from the noble Viscount, the Leader of the House, that the conference has made a unanimous recommendation on the basis, as I understand it, that our present loaf shall contain those qualities and those quantities of the different specified nutrients. They are quite right not to worry with specific extraction rates, but with specifications of what is in the loaf. I am very glad of that. I believe, quite frankly, that the steps I took in reducing the rate to 80 per cent., and then to getting this conference to meet and getting all parties in agreement, will secure us from going back to the 70 or 72 per cent. loaf, which we might well have done if those steps had not been taken. I believe the present loaf contains all the qualities necessary for good nutrition, and I think it is welcomed by the people. I am glad it has turned out so well.
At the time I embarked upon it, I remember it being suggested at the Ministry, that it might be called the "Llewellin Loaf"—a nice alliteration—but I must say that the only thing I thought my predecessor had done wrong was to
486
call a dish the "Woolton Pie," after himself.
LORD WOOLTON: I am so sorry to intervene, but I must be exonerated from that.
LORD LLEWELLIN: At any rate, he looks upon that article of food with the same kind of horror as I do. On the other hand, I believe it will be shown that during the next twelve months we shall have taken steps to see we get a good loaf in this country—I hope without controversy—because I hope this conference, by getting all the leaders of the different people concerned together, will settle this matter. They will go forward together to see what improvements can be made, and whether they can be adopted. They can go ahead, and we can assure the people of this country that the most important article in their diet is one that will always contain good nutritious qualities. I am, of course, fully in accord with the terms of the Motion so ably moved by the noble Lord, Lord Hankey. I would only say to him that his Motion incorporates what has been the policy of the Ministry of Food under my predecessors, under myself, and, I am certain, under my right honourable friend who now presides there.
5.37 p.m.
VISCOUNT BLEDISLOE: My Lords, on your behalf as well as my own, I should like to offer a warm welcome to my noble friend Lord Llewellin, who has just addressed the House, and express the hope that he will, on many occasions in the future, participate usefully in our debates. I may frankly say that, for my part, I find myself very far from being in complete agreement with the views which he has just expressed, and I cannot help thinking that if he had spoken earlier in this debate, some of the speeches to which we have listened would have been very different from what, in fact, they were. First of all, I should like to express my satisfaction that the Government have accepted the terms of this Motion, so ably submitted to this House by my noble friend Lord Hankey. I do not quite know what the noble Viscount the Leader of the House in speaking for the Government, exactly meant when he said that the present extraction would be maintained. Does that mean maintained as a minimum, or does it mean that, in the light

487
of greater knowledge and human experience, the present rate of extraction might be increased? I venture to hope that that is the right interpretation of the statement which the noble Viscount has made.
The noble Viscount made a very interesting announcement which, so far, has not been commented upon, to the effect that the Ministry of Food, which, of course, was set up in each of the wars as a war-time Department, is, in fact, going to be perpetuated in the years of peace. I, for my part, warmly welcome that statement. I welcome it for two reasons, because I feel that the Ministry of Food is badly wanted, first, to secure a higher standard of nutrition throughout the whole community, and, secondly—and I feel very strongly about this—to hold the balance evenly and fairly between the producers and the consumers of food, and thus secure a constant supply of essential foods at a reasonable cost.
I turn for a moment to the speech to which we have just listened. There was one statement in that speech which I think would have quite materially altered the attitude of some of us in the debate on February 28, but which was news to me, and probably at that time was wholly Un-known to members of this House. I refer to the statement that at the research station at St. Albans a method had been discovered for the segregation of the germ of the wheat grain, which, as my noble friend has pointed out, contains the most concentrated elements of nutrition in the grain, and that it had been found possible to segregate that germ without substantially increasing, or indeed maintaining, the high extraction rate. That does meet some of the arguments which have been put forward in these two debates to some extent, but by no means wholly.
Let me say in passing that I should like warmly to endorse the tributes which have been paid by the noble Viscount, the Leader of the House, and by Lord Llewellin, to the very valuable services of Sir Henry French. Sir Henry French served under me many years ago when I was Parliamentary Secretary to the first Ministry of Food, and I recognize fully his great ability and assiduity. I was also glad to hear the very high tributes paid to Sir Jack Drummond, the earliest and greatest prophet of the value of vitamins. I can remember presiding over a joint
488
conference of the Agricultural and Medical Sections of the British Association at which Sir Jack Drummond (then Dr. Drummond) was the chief speaker. At that conference he had no support from the medical practitioners of this country—absolutely none—but he was right, and the doctors were eventually convinced of the value and the truth of the gospel which he preached.
My noble friend who has just spoken emphasized quite truly that at the time when the 85 per cent. extraction of the wheat grain was decided upon, there was a serious shortage of shipping. He might also have added that there was a prospective serious shortage of wheat and other essential foods. But surely we are faced to-day with at least as great a shortage of shipping, and an even greater prospective shortage of food, taking the world as a whole? We are faced with a condition of hunger and starvation on the Continent of Europe absolutely without parallel in human history. We have all to sacrifice something to enable people on the Continent to be adequately fed.
LORD LLEWELLIN: My Lords, if the noble Viscount will permit me to intervene, I know of no shortage of wheat in the world. I think that it is one of the commodities of which we have an ample supply. We are, of course, short of fats and sugar and meat. If we do not get these offals here out of this extraction rate of wheat, we shall have to ship something else for the pigs and the poultry, or our bacon ration and our egg ration will have to be cut.
VISCOUNT BLEDISLOE: My Lords, the obvious answer to that is that you cannot keep wheat in a watertight compartment and treat it by itself as the source of the starchy food or carbohydrates which are essential to a well-balanced ration for all human beings. I would say in passing that although there can be no doubt that there is a considerable and well-maintained output of wheat in various overseas countries, we have to face the fact that a large part of Russia and of Germany and of certain countries overrun by the enemy are under-producing wheat to-day simply because their lands have been overrun. What I want to point out to my noble friend—and I speak with some expert knowledge of the subject, it having been the chief study

489
of my life—is that you have, when considering whether there is or is not an adequacy of carbohydrate foods, to take into account all sorts of other foods, such as lice and potatoes. Incidentally, we in this country, unfortunately, consume polished rice, and we also, unfortunately, as a rule consume potatoes that are not cooked in their jackets; and in each case we lose the very factor which we want to maintain in our loaves. We are losing that non-starchy factor which represents, to a very large extent, the nutritive value of the products in question.
The noble Lord referred just now to the miners. I live amongst miners and I know to a large extent what their food requirements are. It is open to question whether the difficulties that we are having in the matter of an adequate output of coal are not to some extent due to the fact that the miners prefer white bread as a rule, and also that their main protein favourite is pig-food—bacon, and particularly lean bacon. The miner insists on having bacon which does not "run away in the pan," as his wife puts it—very lean bacon. He has been unable to get it during the war period. Whether you speak of the Navy or of the miners or of any particular section of the body politic, you have to remember that in most cases they have something or other in the form of protein food to provide them with a balanced ration. It is on behalf of the very poorest of the poor that we claim for people who have not this opportunity of having a well-balanced ration made good from other sources, that they should have as nutritious a loaf as we can possibly provide for them.
The two most important foods of all are bread and milk. We had a debate on bread on February 28 and a debate on milk on April 11. They are the two great priority foods, as all experts will admit. When we asked for whole milk, pure and unadulterated, and plenty of it, there were no dissentients in this House—cow-keeper, doctor, scientist and Government all concurred. When we asked for as far as possible a wholemeal loaf, pure, unadulterated and nutritious, again we were all agreed, except for the spokesman for the Government, the Government being in this connexion the custodian of national welfare and well-being. We listened then for convincing reasons for the reduction in the extraction rate, and we did not receive
490
them. It is perfectly true that since then a very valuable conference has taken place. I do not myself know the terms of its report. We have had extracts from it read, but if we had all been furnished with the terms of the report we should be better equipped to discuss this question to-day.
I do say that, since that last debate took place, there has been no authoritative medical testimony in favour of a reversion to the white loaf bereft of its protein, its fat, its iron, its calcium and its precious Vitamin B. The present supply of whole milk is inadequate, and all health authorities admit that it will remain so, at any rate for some considerable time to come, until we have more dairy cattle and fewer diseased cattle. It is, therefore, all the more necessary that our nation's bread shall not be robbed of its most nutritive elements either to please a great and wealthy industry—and I am delighted to hear from Lord Hankey to-day that that industry is prepared to consider not only what is demanded by the public but also what is in the best interests of the public—or to meet a prejudice in the matter of colour which is based, as we all know, upon ignorance.
My noble friend in front of me, just now expressed a desire to meet the tastes of the public—I was going to suggest that, perhaps, it would be better to say to pander to the tastes and prejudices of the public. I hold the view very strongly that it is up to the Government, and particularly the Ministry of Food, to help to educate the public. And, in that connexion, what are we doing in the schools? Surely, if we really want a properly nourished public we ought to teach our children some of the fundamental dietetic principles which mean so much to their health and strength and to their working capacity in after life. It is being done in overseas countries. It has been done in New Zealand, where I spent five extremely interesting and profitable years. It has been done in the United States and to a large extent in Australia. Why cannot we introduce into our own schools this most valuable and essential form of instruction?
I do not wish to take up any more of your Lordships' time except to repeat what the noble Lord opposite, Lord Glen-

491
tanar, said in advocating what perhaps might popularly be called an experimentum in corpore vili. I quite agree on that. I ventured to suggest, in the last debate, that nothing could be more profitable and more instructive than to carry out an experiment among comparable age groups in comparable schools in this country, if it could be done with bread of, we will say, 85 per cent. extraction and bread of 80 per cent. extraction, and watch the results, physical, mental and otherwise. If it can be done, as it has been done in the case of milk in Glasgow and elsewhere, with most interesting results, surely with proper organization it can be done in the case of bread. I welcome, and I rejoice in, the reply which the noble Viscount the Leader of the House has given us to-day to this Resolution, if that reply means, as I hope it does, that we are not going to be necessarily content with 80 per cent. extraction for all time, but that that will be an assured minimum upon which, in the light of greater information and greater human experience, we can build to higher figures if in the best interests of the public it is desirable to do so.
5.55 p.m.
LORD HANKEY: My Lords, I must join my noble friend Lord Bledisloe in congratulating my noble friend Lord Llewellin on his first speech in this House. The manner of its presentation rejoiced my heart, and I shall look forward to his further utterances. I say that with the more cordiality because I disagree with a very large part of what he said. Perhaps we can look forward to crossing swords with buttons on in the future. I wish to thank the Government and to express my great gratification both at their acceptance of the Resolution, and at the manner of their acceptance, as conveyed by my noble friend the Leader of the House. Like my noble friend Lord Bledisloe I was very glad to hear the announcement that the Ministry of Food was to be continued and that this opportunity should have been taken to make that announcement. I was also very pleased to hear that the report is to be published. But I confess that, after some of the things my noble friend Lord Horder said, I look forward to it with some trepidation. But that is alleviated by two things: first, that the rot is being stopped at 80 per cent.; and,
492
second, if I understood my noble friend the Leader of the House aright, that this 80 per cent. will not necessarily be the permanent standard for bread, and that the Government will have no hesitation in raising the extraction if researches which have been decided upon show the need for that to be done.
On Question, Resolution agreed to.

NEGOTIATIONS WITH U.S.A.
5.58 p.m.
VISCOUNT HAILSHAM: My Lords, in the absence of my noble friend Viscount Elibank, I beg to ask the question standing in his name.
[The question was as follows:
To ask His Majesty's Government whether, in connexion with the financial negotiations now proceeding with the United States of America, there is any intention on the part of His Majesty's Government to abolish or reduce Imperial Preference, and, if so, whether they have conferred with the Dominions and Colonies regarding this; and, further, whether they are aware of the strong feeling that would be aroused within the Commonwealth and Empire if such a step were taken, detrimental as it would be to the whole commercial solidity and well-being of the Commonwealth and Empire.]
LORD WALKDEN: My Lords, I have been asked to reply to the noble Viscount's question on behalf of my noble friend the Leader of the House, who is unable now to be present. Side by side with the financial talks, discussions are proceeding in Washington on economic policy as a whole, with a view to determining how progress can best be made towards the realization of the objectives set out in Article VII of the Mutual Aid Agreement with the United States. I can assure the noble Viscount that, in these discussions, the mutual obligations which exist between members of the British Commonwealth in the commercial field will be fully borne in mind, and that no commitment which might affect those obligations will be entered into without full consultation with our partners in the Commonwealth.

GOVERNMENT OF BURMA (TEMPORARY PROVISIONS) ORDER, 1945.
Report from the India and Burma Orders Committee, That they have examined the Order as required by the Standing Orders of the House; that the Order is made under the urgency procedure provided for by the proviso to subsection (1) of Section 157 of the Government of Burma Act, 1935; that in their opinion the Order raises important questions of policy and principle which have, however, already been accepted by
494
the House when passing the Government of Burma (Temporary Provisions) Act, 1945; that the Order is not founded on precedent; that in the opinion of the Committee the Order cannot be passed by the House without further attention, but that no further inquiry is necessary before the House proceeds to a decision on the Resolution to approve the making of the said Order.
Read, and ordered to lie on the Table.
House adjourned at six o'clock.