Monday, 27 November 2017

A Call for Food Rationing



Potato queue at Kingsbury Farm, Church Street, Dunstable in April 1917 [Z50/36/142]

Tuesday 27th November 1917: Mr. T. A. Foster of 12 Cromwell Road, Luton has written to the Luton News arguing forcefully that the time has come to introduce food rationing in the face of the current “miserable scramble for food”. Continuing to appeal to the better nature of “food hogs” is pointless; meanwhile the responsible members of society are short of almost all necessary foods. He says:

“The greedy part of the community care nothing for talk or warnings. Nothing but drastic action will ever move them. Let us share and share alike, and thus avoid this most humiliating hunt for food. In the name of common sense, why – if the food question is a matter of life and death to the nation – is it still being tampered with? How ludicrous is the position. On the one hand we are being warned and threatened by the Food Controller that we shall have to have compulsory rationing all round, if we are not more moderate in the use of foods. On the other hand we have the great mass of the people everywhere looking forward to compulsory rationing as a relief. Indecision is, and has been throughout the war, our greatest enemy. We see it in every conceivable direction … When, oh when, will our “wobblers cease from wobbling”?

Source: Luton News, 28th November 1917

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