Colonel COLLINSasked the Parliamentary Secretary to the Ministry of Food if he is aware that the Department has recently ordered several million new bags for potatoes, which are to be sold at 6d. each; is he aware that the controlled price, fixed in December, 1917, was about 8½d.; is he aware that merchants have purchased quantities of new and secondhand bags for other trades, which to-day are of little use through the recent action of his Department; and will he confer with representatives of such manufacturers, so as to secure the use of secondhand bags?
§ Mr. CLYNESThe answer to the first two parts of the question is in the affirmative. Before ordering the potato bags the Food Controller satisfied himself, by obtaining a return of all the bags available for carrying potatoes, that the supply was insufficient. The answer to the third part of the question is, accordingly, in the negative; and the last part of the question does not arise.