LETTERS TO THE EDITOR.
DRINK VERSUS FOOD.
(To THE EDITOR Cr THE " SPECTATOR.") Sin,—Lord Devonport has now issued his important appeal to the nation, and we are to be upon our honour to confine ourselves to a weekly consumption per head of four pounds of bread, two and a half pounds of meat, and three-quarters of a pound of sugar. So much for the eaters, but Lord Devonport makes no appeal to the honour of the drinkers! Nor does he ask them to confine them- selves to one, two, three, or four glasses per day or bottles per week. The nation is to he saved by the honour of its eaters. Its drinkers apparently may do what they please, so far as Lord Devonport is concerned. This continuous ignoring and neglecting on the part of the Government of a vital issue, at a time like this, is perfectly maddening to thousands. Since the matter of food economy for national reasons was first mooted about eighteen months ago I and mine have rationed ourselves closely in more articles even than bread, meat, and sugar, only to see the waste caused by drink going on around us as gloriously as ever. For instance, I have seen more than once at hotels a party of four sitting down to a meal at which, with champagne and-other winos and liqueurs, more is squandered in one evening than my household economy would save in a week. And the effect which Lord Devonport's appeal has upon me and many others is that until he and his colleagues deal more drastically with the main source of food waste, I see no.further use in stinting my household and irritating my servants so long as I am able to pay for what I can get. It may be said " two wrongs don't make a right," but perhaps there is a bit of contrariness latent in every Irishman— even in an Ulster Loyalist. There is to be a limit on wholesome food. There is to be no limit on drink, wholesome or otherwise. This indeed is the limit —I am, Sir, Le.,
JAMES N. RICIIMIDSON, ex-M.P.
Previous page
