ORGANIZED RATIONING. (To THE EDITOR or THE " SPECTATOIL"2 SIR,—May
I suggest the term "organized rationing" instead of the very misleading and highly objectionable term "compulsory
rationing It seems to me that the facts are these: (1) There is a certain amount of foodstuff available between now and harvest 1018, which quantity we will call A. (2) There are a certain number of lives to be supported, which we will call B.
(3) Ae-BoCe_-amount available for each individual. (4) The British people elect their representatives and authorize -them to do certain things. They are paid a fixed salary out of public funds for their work. (5) The Government is, than, the paid servant of the nation. (6) It is instructed to see that the people are fed. That is one of its primary duties. (7) One man, the Food Controller, is specially deputed for this work. (8) Therefore if he fails to secure C he fails in the work the nation has entrusted to him. -(9) His obvious duty is to see that each individual has C. (10) We, as a people, demand it from him. How then can the organized rationing be called compulsory? Rather, as it is the will.of the nation that we shall have enough to eat secured to us, it is true voluntary rationing. System is not compulsion. We shall have compulsory hunger if we go on much longer in the present wasteful way. Organized rationing can be most effectively carried out without the creation of a single State- paid official or a clumsy and irritating system of food tickets, if we adopt the thoroughly English system of organization which is being put into practice by this Society, instead of slavishly copy- ing the -methods of Gerznany.—I am, Sir, &c., lieseoarr TAYLOR.
Wendy and Shingey Parish War Society, Ltd., Wendy (Combs), Royston, Herts.
[Readers who wish to study the Wendy system should apply direct to Mies Margaret Taylor, and not to us.—Eo. Spectator.]
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