TOPICS OF THE DAY'.
BREAD VERSUS BEER.
"The bald fart is that the barley, sugar, and other ingredients used in brewing are required for food. In fact, I may say it is really a question ej' Bread versus Beer.' "—(Lord DEVOSPORT to Ate Press.) THERE is a kind of grim humour about Lord Devonport which is not a little remarkable. For the, past month epeople have been hotly debating whether beer is a food. ven if it is not, say some, it is still a national duty to go en turning barley into beer, beleaguered city or not. Think what excellent milk comes from the waste products of the brewer and how greedily our mikh-cows consume it! For six weeks, while this talk was going on, Lord Devon- port, the Food Controller, like Brer Rabbit, " wasn't sayin' nuffin'." On Thursday, however, he suddenly broke silence. In a few severely plain words he swept away all the nonsense of the feed controversy, and then proceeded to take action which gives away not only the whole of the brewers' case as regards food and drink, but also the case of the Minister for Agriculture. Mr. Prothero showed us an idyllic picture of the brewer and the milkmaid straying hand-in-hand through meadows starred with daisies and buttercups, inseparable companions in the noble work of supplying the nation with food. Lord Devonport in stentorian tones bawls out " Fudge !" and declares that the issue is simply " Breed or Beer."
It is true that Lord Devonport does not say, like the General in" Ignotus's " fable, that not an ounce of food shall be turned into beer while the shortage lasts. He announces, however, that after a careful investigation of the resources available for the food of the people, he has come to the conclusion that " it is imperative to restrict the materials used in the production of beer." Accordingly the brewers are to be allowed to destroy foodstuffs for brewing purposes only to the extent of seventy per cent. of the output of the financial year which will end on March 31st, 1917. This, it is calculated, will mean a reduction of about half, measured by the beer brewed in the year 1913-14. No doubt this allows the destruction of a great deal of barley which might be used immediately for human food, or which, better still, could be stored against the unforeseen dangers of the future. Still, to save fifty per cent. of the barley from the vat is something. For the moment, however, the amount of the saviag effected is not the point which we wish to emphasize. What we desire to point out to our readers is that the Government, through the mouth of Lord Devonport, the man who has been placed in absolute control of our food supplies, admit the point we have made for so many weeks past—namely, that barley is food, and that when there is a shortage it is wrong to turn it into beer. That is a tremendous advance, and surely must have tre- mendous consequences. In the future the alluring notices : ' Think of the poor children and their milk ! " How to get nourishment for our starving little ones,' It is the brewer who fills the nation's milkcan,' and so forth can no longer be emblazoned on the brewers' triumphal car. From these giddy heights of imagination we have come down, thank Heaven, to the plain pedestrian fact that though barley makes good food for cows as well as for human beings, it is madness, when there is a shortage of food, to throw away some eighty- three per cent. of the proteids in the said barley. Brewers' Alley is a very long and expensive short cut to the Milky Way. Before dealing with what are likely to be the ultimate consequences of the Order, we may as well quote the passage from the Notice issued by the Food Controller which deals with the immediate results of restriction. These will be :— " (1) An increase in the amount of barley, sugar, and other brewing ingredimits available for food purposes. (2) The setting free of tonnage, transport, labour, and fuel for pur- poses other than brewing.
(3) An increase from 23 per cent. to 40 per cent. in the offals used by farmers for the feeding of cattle."
It will be seen from this that not only has the Food Con- troller completely given away the milk case, but 'also that he supports the argument so often used by us that ton- nage, the most precious thing we now possess, is being wasted 0 to a scandalous extent in the transport of intoxicants. Intoxi- cants made from foreign grapes do not of course involve any wastage of the food supplies of the world, yet nevertheless the consumption here is to be cut down by fifty per cent. This action must obviously be due either to what we may call the tonnage argument, or else to the acceptance by the Government in principle of the argument that the use of into cants in war time is to be condemned. They have not, that is, restricted the use of wine and spirits out of mere levity of heart but for a serious cause. 'DIA ifthe 'pea Ak : which the commonwealth , stands demands 'a fifty-per-tea: rednction in beer and in liquor tonnage, why not get the : extra safety of a hundred-per-cent. reduction in both' That is a question which we-venture to say will haunt the Govern- ment like a spectre till it is laid by a plain answer. 1 We are glad to see that Lord Devonport, in discussing the effect of the Order with representatives of the Press, emphati- cally declared that the steps he had taken were in no way to be 'deemed measures of temperance or social reform—a point which we have made ad nauseam in the Spectator, but *rhioh for controversial purposes ha3 been denied by our opponents with the utmost vehemence. Lord Devonport went en to explain in detail what he called the food side of the reduction. This amazing passage must be given textually, for it puts the Spectator case far more strongly and emphatically than we have ever dared to put it :- " The food side of the reduction is represented by 286,000 of barley, 36,000 tons of sugar, and 16,500 tons of grits, is also a brewing ingredient. On the transport side there will . n, first of all, a large saving in mercantile marine tonnage; and, further, a very considera'ble saving in land transport, such
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railway and other forms of haulage. There will also be a consequen reduction in the amount of labour employed and fuel consum in the process of manufacturing beer. This restriction of brewl,ng will further have a direct favourable effect on the production of meat and milk, betause it will sot free for the use of agriculturists—the class who produce meat and milk—agreater percentage of dials than are at present produced from brewers' grains, which is the residuum of the barley used in brewing. At present the brewer returns 2$ per cent. of the barley he uses m the shape of feeding offals. But the barley, when milled—as it is intended to be by this Order—gives, in the first place, 50 per cent. of flour, which is, of course, direct human food, and, of the remainder, 40 per cent. is returned in the shape of what is termed millers' effals. I say that because it has been asserted over and over again, both by public) advertisement and by misinformed Press statements, that any restriction of brewing would have the in- jurious direct effect on feeding-stuffs used by agriculturists. But as a matter of fact, under these restrictions, the contrary will be the case. The purposes to which mainly the released barley is to be devoted will give a far greater Tield—the difference between 25 per cent. and 40 per cent.—of offals for the services of the agriculturist."
Before we leave the subject we should like to ask Lord Devonport a question of vital importance to him as well as to the nation. We note that he has not done for the second and remaining fifty per cent. of intoxicants what he felt it was his imperative duty to do for the first fifty per cent. —i.e., prohibit its production altogether. That being so, will he tell us, not negatively-and indirectly, but positively and directly, that he has done all that there is need to do to make the country absolutely secure ? Will he, that is, assure the country ost his word of honour that he has not made any compromise in regard to food, any ` all-I-could-manage-in-the-circumstances ' arrangement, but has carried through all that is necessary to save us from the risk of starvation 1 The country will accept his word. If ho will make such a statement, we shall feel that there is no need for further anxiety in regard to the Bread or Beer problem. If Lord Devonport, as Food Controller—us the one man responsible—will not say that he has obtained for us as complete and absolute security as it was physically possible,. to obtain, and therefore has to admit that he could increase our security by cutting off the remaining fifty per cent. of foodstuffs used in the manufacture of intoxicants, and by saving/ the tonnage used in the transport of intoxicants, then, though it is unpleasant to say it, we say deliberately that Lord Devonport would be guilty of the very gravest derelic tion of duty which is conceivable in a public-servant. He, as the man entrusted by the nation with an imperative duty, would not bo doing for the country in its hour of peril what he knows he ought to do. Here, for fear of being accused of being unreasonable, let us say that we fully realize that it would not be right to expose every public man to thin kind of dilemma. If it were a case of running the risk of starvation at home in order to supply men for the firing line, we might not only pardon but even applaud the man who ran the risk. Men, however, it is a question of intoxicants against food, of the ordinary man's pleasure and of the brewer's profits against an extra margin of safety for the nation, then we can only say that if Lord Devonport has made a wronee' calculation— God help him ! It will not only be right but necessary to demand from him the utmost measure of personal respon- sibility. If things go wrong he will, on his own confession, have sinned against the light. That seems a merciless thing to say, perhaps, but it is our duty to say it. If when his eyes are open, as they evidently are, Lord Devonport does not give us the fullest margin of safety procurable, and the margin of safety he does give us proves inadequate, he will have no just cause of complaint if a ruined and starving people make him pay the penaltyot a great betrayal.
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