Women and War Work Part 12

FOOD PRODUCTION AND CONSERVATION

"The whole country ought to realise that we are a beleaguered city."

--The President of the Board of Agriculture.

"If you have any belief in the cause for which thousands of your fellow-countrymen have laid down their lives, you will sc.r.a.pe and sc.r.a.pe and sc.r.a.pe, you will go in old clothes, and old boots, and old ties until such a ma.s.s of treasure be garnered into the coffers of the Government as to secure at the end of all this tangle of misery a real and lasting settlement for Europe."

--The President of the Board of Education.

CHAPTER X

FOOD PRODUCTION AND CONSERVATION

In this great struggle the food question a.s.sumes greater and greater importance.

The production of food has been affected by the raising of great armies--more than twenty million men are in arms in Europe--by the feeding of armies, for which we must, of necessity, provide food in excess of what these men would need in civil life. The ability to get the food has been made difficult for us by the submarine warfare.

Thousands of tons of wheat lie in Australia, but we cannot afford ships to bring it. Tea has been very short in England, though again there are thousands of tons waiting in India. The most urgent need of the Allies is for ships and more ships. There has been great loss of tonnage and the needs of the Army and Navy absorb the service of vast numbers of the available ships. We have moved 13,000,000 men since war broke out, and the supplies and munitions they have needed, to our many fronts. Ceaselessly we move the wounded. We have to bring into Britain half our food. That we have done this, has been due to the British Navy and the Reserves--the patrols and the mine sweepers--the Fringes of the Fleet--and not least, the merchant seaman. About 6,000 merchantmen have been killed by the enemy, some with diabolical cruelty. These men are torpedoed and come into port, and go for another ship at once. On the ship on which I crossed there were seamen who had been torpedoed three times In its submarine warfare the enemy has broken every international and human law--has used "frightfulness"

to its fullest extent, and the answer of our merchant seamen is to go to sea again as soon as the ship is ready, and the older men, who had retired, return to sea. The seaman of our country know the enemy. It was our Seamen's Union that refused to carry the Peace Delegates to Stockholm, and it is they and our fishermen who, in the Reserves, man the patrols and mine sweepers, and who, on our little drifters and trawlers, have fought the enemy's big destroyers--fought till they went down, refusing to surrender.

It is not strange that the best-liked poster in our Food Crusade, and the one people want everywhere, is a simple drawing of a merchant seaman, and under it the words, "We risk our lives to bring you food.

It is up to you not to waste it."

The countries that can succeed best in solving the food question are the countries that will win, and the food problem will not cease, any more than many others, when peace is declared.

Very early in the war, existing organizations, such as the National Food Reform a.s.sociation, and newly created ones, the National Food Economy League and the Patriotic Food League of Scotland, did a great deal of active work on food saving. They aimed at instructing in the scientific principles of the economical use of food, and issued admirable leaflets and Handbooks for Housewives and Cookery Books.

A series of Exhibitions, often described as "Patriotic Housekeeping Exhibitions" were held in different parts of the country, organized generally by women's societies. One of the early ones I organized in Salisbury. Later, the Public Trustee was chairman of an Official Committee, which organized large Exhibitions in London and throughout the country. These Exhibitions had stalls showing food values with specimens, had exhibits of the most economical cooking stoves and arrangements, and exhibited every manner of time and labour saving device. They had wonderful exhibits of clothes for children made from old clothes of grown-ups, of marvellous dresses and little jerseys and caps and scarfs made from legs of old stockings. There were charming dresses and underclothing made of the very simplest materials and decorated artistically with st.i.tching and embroidery. These were made by school girls of seven and upwards for themselves, and the Glasgow School of Art's work, done in schools there, was perfectly beautiful.

The cost was shown and it was incredibly small. All sorts of things for the household in simple carpentry and upholstery, using up boxes and wood, were shown, and old tins were converted into all sorts of useful household things. Facts as to waste were made as striking as possible by demonstration. Every exhibition had a War Savings Stall and Certificates were often sold at these in large numbers, the Queen buying the first sold at the first London Exhibition.

The great feature of the Exhibitions was Food Saving and Conservation.

Demonstrations in cooking and in hay-box cooking, were given and these were attended by thousands of women, Miss Petty, "The Pudding Lady,"

being a specially attractive demonstrator. She was called "The Pudding Lady," first by little children in London in the East End, where she used to go into the homes, and show them how to cook on their own fires, and with their own meagre possessions. When she came there was pudding, so her t.i.tle came as a result.

We always included exhibits and posters on the care of the babies and the children. Lectures on vegetable and potato growing, bee and poultry keeping, etc., were also given.

There were compet.i.tions in connection with the Exhibitions--prizes were offered for the best cake--for the best war bread--for the best dinners for a family at a small cost--for the best weekly budgets of different small incomes--for the best blouse and dress made at a small cost, etc., and these were extremely popular. The prizes were generally War Savings Certificates or labour-saving devices.

From the Governmental point of view the Food work is in two great divisions: Food Production, which is worked by the Food Production Department of the Board of Agriculture, of which the Women's Branch is doing the work of placing women on the land. It not only works on the production of more food but it organizes the conservation of food, such as fruit bottling, and preserving fruit, and vegetable and fruit drying, etc.

A very great deal has been done in demonstrating how to conserve fruit and vegetables all over the country and this has been done to an extent hitherto quite unreached. Co-operative work has been done and most interesting experiments made. The gla.s.s bottles necessary have been secured by the Department, and are sold by them to those doing the conservation at a fixed price. Last summer the Sugar Commission also arranged to sell sufficient sugar for making preserves to those people who grow their own fruit. This they succeeded in doing to a very large extent--which was a most valuable conservation.

The Ministry of Food is the other great body dealing with all food problems of supply, price, regulations, and propaganda.

Lord Rhondda is our Food Controller. Our first Controller was Lord Devonport. Food control is the most unpopular work in any country and a Food Controller deserves the help, sympathy and support of every good citizen. No Food Controller, no matter how able, and no matter how great and comprehensive his powers are, can do his work without the co-operation of the people.

Lord Rhondda's powers are very great as to control of supplier prices and regulations. The price of the four pound loaf (and it must be four pounds) is fixed by our Government at 18 cents and the loss is borne by the Government.

The prices of meat, beans, cheese, tea, sugar, milk, and the profits on other articles are regulated by the Ministry. When Lord Devonport was Food Controller we had courses at lunch and dinner limited--a policy most people felt to be stupid as it meant a run on staple foods--and it was abandoned by Lord Rhondda. We had meatless days, which also have been stopped. We found it difficult to do, and impossible to regulate. We had many potatoless days last spring--by regulation in the restaurants--perforce by most of us in towns where they were almost impossible to get, but this year we have the biggest potato crop we have had.

In restaurants and hotels now supplies are regulated. No one can have more than two ounces of bread at any meal, and the amount of flour and sugar supplied is strictly rationed to the hotels, according to the number served. Not more than five ounces of meat (before cooking) can be served at any meal. These regulations are strictly enforced, and the duty of seeing all the regulations are carried out, and all the work done, devolves upon the Local Food Control Committees which have been set up all over the country under the Ministry, by the local authorities. On every such Committee there must be women. They fix prices for milk, etc., and initiate prosecutions for infringements of the laws regulating food.

No white flour is sold or used in Britain. The mills are all controlled by the Government and all flour is now war grade, which means it is made of about 70 per cent white flour and other grains, rye, corn (which we call maize), barley, rice-flour, etc., are added.

We expect to mill potato flour this year. Oatmeal has a fixed price, 9 cents a pound, in Scotland, 10 cents in England. No fancy pastries, no icing on cakes and no fancy bread may be made. Only two shapes of loaf are allowed--the tin loaf and the Coburg. Cakes must only have 15 per cent sugar and 30 per cent war grade flour. Buns and scones and biscuits have regulations as to making, also.

b.u.t.ter is very scarce and margarine supplies not always big enough, and we have tea and sugar and margerine queues in our big towns--women standing in long rows waiting. It is an intolerable waste of time--and yet it seems difficult to get it managed otherwise.

The woman in the home in our country with high prices, want of supplies, and her desire to economise has had a busy and full time, but our people are quite well fed. Naturally enough, considering the hard work we are all doing, our people are really using more, not less food, but waste is being fought very well.

Waste is a punishable offence and if you throw away bread or any good food, you will be proceeded against, as many have been, and fined 40/- to 100. No bread must be sold that is not twelve hours baked. New bread is extravagant in cutting and people eat more. It is interesting to note that in one period of the Napoleonic wars we did the same thing and ate no new bread.

Food h.o.a.rding is an offence and the food is commandeered and the h.o.a.rder punished. Several people have been fined 50 and upwards.

The work of the Army in economizing food has been a great work.

Rations have been cut down and much more carefully dealt with. The use of waste products has become a science. All the fats are saved--even the fats in water used in washing dishes are trapped and saved. The fats are used to make glycerine, and last year the Army saved enough waste fat to make glycerine for 18,000,000 sh.e.l.ls. Fats and sc.r.a.ps for pigs, and bones, etc., are all sold and one-third of the money goes back to the men's messing funds to buy additional foods and every camp tries to beat the other in its care and efficiency and the women cooks are doing admirably in this work.

Officers of the Navy and Army are only permitted to spend a certain amount on meals in restaurants and hotels--3/6 for lunch and 5/6 for dinner and 1/6 for tea.

The other side of the Food Campaign is the propaganda and educative work. Lord Rhondda has two women Co-Directors with him--Mrs. C.S. Peel and Mrs. M. Pember Reeves--in the Ministry of Food, and they help in the whole work and very specially with the educational and propaganda work, and with the work of communal feeding.

A number of communal kitchens have been established with great success--many being in London. At these thousands of meals are prepared--soups and stews, fish, and meats, and puddings, every variety of dishes, and the purchasers come to the kitchens and bring plates and jugs to carry away the food. Soups are sold from 2 to 4 cents for a jugful, and other things in proportion. These are established under official recognition, the Munic.i.p.alities in most cases providing the initial cost. The prices paid cover the cost of food and cooking, and the service is practically all voluntary.

The first propaganda work was, as I have said, done by the War Savings Committees, and our big task was to try to make our people realize how undesirable it is to have to resort to compulsory rationing. We are rationed on sugar and we do not want to adopt more compulsory rationing than is necessary. Compulsory rationing, in some people's minds, seems to ensure supplies. It does not and where, under voluntary rationing, people go round and find other food and get along with the supplies there are, under compulsory rationing there would always be a tendency to demand their ration and to make trouble about the lack of any one commodity in it.

Compulsory rationing to be workable must be a simple scheme, and no overhead ration of bread, for example, is just. The needs of workers vary and so do the needs of individuals, and bread is the staple food of our poorer cla.s.ses. They have less variety of foods and need more bread than the better-off people. Compulsory rationing may have to come, but most of us are determined it will not come till it is really unavoidable and we are appealing to our people to prevent that, and ma.s.ses of them are economizing and saving in a manner worthy of the greatest praise.

The rationing we appealed to our people to get down to, was three pounds of flour per head in the week, 2 lbs. of meat and lb. sugar.

The King's Pledge, which we had signed by those willing to do this, all over the country, pledged people to cut down their consumption of grain by one-quarter in the household, and the King's Proclamation urged this, and economies in grain and horse feeding.

An old Proclamation of the 18th century appealed to our people to cut down their consumption of their grains by one-third and was almost identical in form, and copies signed by Edmund Burke and other famous people were shown in our Thrift Exhibitions in Buckinghamshire.

We arranged meetings for the maids of households in big groups to explain the need and meaning of economy in food with great success.

Every head of a household knows that the maids can make or mar one's efforts to save food, and we have found many of ours admirable, and willing to do wonders in the way of economy and saving.

If compulsory rationing in more than sugar comes as it may, the basis of rationing will, we believe, be worked out with as much consideration as possible of the needs of the workers.

Our Co-operative movement is, in a simple way rationing its buyers, by regulating supplies, and it is in voluntary work of that kind, which is going on extensively, and in the people's own efforts and economies that our great hope lies.

The Ministry of Food arranges meetings and sends speakers to a.s.sociations and bodies of every kind. The schools are very extensively used for demonstrations to which the parents are invited.