FEED THE HUNGRY WORKERS"
Stn,—Mr. J. L. Hodson reminds one of the tourist who rushes round some country in a week or ten days and immediately on his return home rushes to print his expert knowledge. His examination of the food-problem on the Clydeside has been very superficial, otherwise he would have found that the need is not for canteens but for a proper handling of the situation by the Ministry of Food. The real position is that all but a very small percentage of the workers live within a comparatively short distance from their work and have ample time to go home for their meals in the short time allotted. The problem is that the Ministry of Food has so mishandled the matter that the two main items of the workers' diet, butcher-meat and fish, cannot be secured in sufficient , quantity owing to the restriction of the amount allowed in the first case and the price in the second. If Mr. Hodson intends to increase the workers' ration by meals in canteens the workers would much prefer to secure this increased ration through the usual channel and allow the housewife to supply his meals. I would suggest that he examines the enormous waste that takes place at many canteens. Much criticism has been passed on the Ministry of Food by traders on the Clydeside. During the autumn and early winter there was a glut of butcher-meat and the butchers had far more than they desired. The Ministry ought to have been aware that the spring was always the difficult period in the trade and instead of allocating increased quantities not required by the public a sufficient quantity should have been stored. Of course I will be told there is a shortage of storage accommodation, but thit is no excuse as the Ministry of Food had ample time even before the war to make certain of ample storage-accommodation against all eventualities. I need hardly mention the colossal failure of the Fish Control which lasted only a few days at the outbreak of war and was so badly conceived that it broke down immediately. Meantime fortunes are being made by certain fishermen and the workers cannot afford this item of diet.
As far as Clydeside is concerned it is not canteens that are needed but a drastic change at the Ministry of Food.—Yours, &c.,
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