Colonel THORNEasked the Food Controller whether the fixed price at which a poor person is supplied with a pound of oat flour to make porridge is 5d. in England and 4½d. in Scotland, while the proprietor of studs of hunters or race-horses can procure the same quality of oats at 50s. per quarter of 336 lbs. or 1¾d. per lb.; and whether the consumption for the latter purpose has risen about 300 per cent. since the signing of the Armistice?
§ Mr. McCURDYThe prices mentioned are incorrect. The present maximum prices for oat products as fixed by the Oats Products (Retail Prices) Order, 1918, and Amendments thereto, are 4½d. per lb. for sales in England and Wales and 4d. per lb. in Scotland and Ireland, and such products are manufactured from milling oats and not feed oats. With regard to 1147W the second portion of the question, the prices mentioned, 50s. per quarter, is the present price under the Grain Prices Order, 1918, for home-grown feeding oats, but practically the only native oats available for the purposes mentioned are Irish and Scottish oats, which, when transport and other charges are added, cost the consumer in the neighbourhood of 65s. per 336 lbs. In regard to the latter portion of the question, hunters or race-horses are rationed under the Horses Rationing (No. 2) Order, 1918, dated 17th October, 1918.