A Tangled Webb? •
Mr. Maurice Webb may yet have to suffer for the popularity which be now enjoys. The hope that he would work some sort of miracle at the Ministry of Food has risen too high and it descended with something of a bump when his over-publicised announcement on Wednesday turned out to be the usual business of an ounce off here and an ounce on there. If hope rises again when the results of the review of the points system are announced next week or when the fate of the five-shilling limit on restaurant meals is decided, it is still doubtful whether the Minister can remain the permanent junior Santa Claus he is now taken to be. It is next to impossible for any Minister of Food to remain popular for long—even if he is a sausage lover. Mr. Webb probably has the right idea if he really intends to aim at a steady increase in all rations until rationing becomes unnecessary. It must be the aim of any good Minister of Food to cut the ground from under his own feet. But does Mr. Webb intend to do that ? Or could be do it if he wanted to ? The appalling tangle which he revealed in his statement on bacon and butter prices last week may take years to untie. In effect the price rise due to the removal of a number of subsidies to farmers has been concentrated on bacon and butter_ That is simply to say that a price level already distorted by the very existence of subsidies has been further distorted by the manipulation of those subsidies for what are known as " psychological " reasons. The day when people bought what they could afford and did not buy what they could not afford is passing. The cooking of British food prices has become as common, and quite possibly as disastrous, as the cooking of British food. If Mr. Webb wants to remain a popular figure he had best realise from the start that in confusing the relationship between costs and prices he is simply laying up trouble for himself and for the country.
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