Nip in the Air The first keen nip of winter
is in the air. Mr Noel Baker's announcement at a Press conference on Tuesday that the domestic ration of coke and anthracite is to be at a maximum of thirty hundredweight per household for the period between August and April follows hard on the warning of more frequent winter power-cuts. The new coke ration is smaller than it was when rationing ended, and there is no certainty that it will be met. This new expedient can make no claims to be counted as rationing in any accepted sense of the word ; it is simply a measure of restriction directed at one unorganised section of the opulation. It is true that there has been a sharp rise in the demand for coke by domestic consumers during the past three Months, but Mr Noel Baker was unable to say how much this was due to the Government's own exhortation that stocks should wherever possible be built up. during the summer. At any rate the total amount involved. is no justification for the hasty new plan. " Plan " is, of course, entirely the wrong word to use in this context. The Government must have known more than a year ago that the need to rearm, to export, and to cope with the ever-expanding domestic demand for fuel and power of every description would require a comprehensive scheme for allocating our resources. Coal is, in fact, the basic commodity round which all industrial planning must revolve ; our supplies of it cannot be treated like the bacon ration, to be trimmed every few months according to the exigencies of the moment.
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