A SPECTATOR'S NOTEBOOK
WHAT became almost an informal debate on an issue of real importance blew up unexpectedly at question-time in the House of Commons on Tuesday. Mr. Osborne, the Conservative Member for Louth, having asked the Chancellor of Exchequer what proportion of the domestic fat-ration was provided by the £1,500,000 spent on fats and oils in the United States in the last 'mil of 1946, Mr. Dalton gave the figure as 6.8 per cent. Mr. Osborne thereupon asked perti- nently whether it would not be wise in existing circumstances to spend more of our dollars on fats and less on tobacco ; Sir Frank Sanderson questioned the wisdom of the expenditure on American films ; and then Mr. Churchill took a hand. After a slight breeze arising from an implication by the Chancellor that the ex-Premier was not a bigoted non-smoker himself, the House plainly expressed its general uneasiness about the extent of the dissipation of dollars in smoke. Mr. Dalton got so far as to affirm that if there were a general national appeal to people to economise in tobacco he would be prepared to do his part. There is not much leadership or states- manship visible in that. It is obvious _hat we cannot afford to spend anything like what we are spending on tobacco from America. Little though I like controls and restraints, I should be glad in this matter to see the Chancellor take a lesson in austerity from his colleague, Sir Stafford Cripps.
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