Bacon and the Poor There. is a passage not unWorthy
of. the attention of the Cabinet in the report of the retail stores—Home and Colonial; Liptons and others—associated with the Unilever group. Profits in every case have dropped heavily,' Home and Colonial from 1729,770 to £503,805, Liptons from £201;060 fo £142,813, and so on. The chief reason given by the board of Home and Colonial is a very serious decrease in' the consumption of bacon as a result of the rise in price due to the quota on imports. The public, it is. pointed out, is not prepared to pay more than what it considers an economic price for -bacon. That is true enough, for there are various other foodstuffs that can be substituted in the family dietary. But what is truer still is that the poorest families, which know nothing of " economic prices," have been compelled to drop bacon simply because they can no longer afford it. The bacon scheme is in fact hitting the poorest section of the popula- tion hardest, as it was always obvious that it would. A simultaneous cry of despair from the Scottish Provision Trade Exeentive tells the same story. This is a serious matter, and-Mr. Elliot's solicitude for the producer ought to be held in check by an at least equal solicitude for the consumer on the part of some of Ns colleagues in the Cabinet.
Previous page
