On Friday week the Trade Union Congress. in spite of
the pro- tests of Mr. Clynes, voted by a small majority a resolution in favour of a meat subsidy. The idea was that the price of meat should be fixed below cost and that the difference should be paid by the Treasury. This is an imitation, of course, of the bread subsidy, which costs the taxpayer something like forty millions a year. Such subsidies are bad in principle, and we hope that the Govern- ment will pay not the least attention to the resolution. Wages are being continually advanced in order to meet the ascending prices of food, and it is not at all likely that this ascent would be checked by a reduction in the price of certain forms of food. An argument of special force against such subsidies in time of war is that they inevitably stimulate consumption. The object of every patriotic person at present should be to confine consumption to its narrowest limits.
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