2 JUNE 1917, Page 3

We are sure our readers will agree that for official

ineptitude it would be difficult to find a parallel to this wonderful letter. Apparently at the Ministry of Food they consider that malt is much too precious to enter the mouths of ordinary men, women, or children. As James I. said when he finished the last morsel of the first pineapple that ever came into England, " It is a fruit too delicious for a subject to taste of." That is what they must think about malt at the Food Ministry. It is material too precious for anybody but the local representative of the Sovereign Trade to taste of. Not even a poor hundredweight of the sublime raw material could be spared for so plebeian a commodity as toffee! There is either a great courtier or a great wag loose at Grosvenor House.