Nothing I have heard or read dispels the conviction that
the egg-order is a gigantic blunder which Lord Woolton will still have to have the courage to cancel. That it will result on a large scale in the killing of laying fowls for food, and a con- sequent diminution of the egg-supply, seems certain. Take one case with which I happen to be familiar. A resident in the heart of the country has something over 8o poultry. Pack- ing-stations will only collect within a radius of ten miles, and in this case there is no station nearer than twelve miles. In any event, to avoid struggles with bureaucracy, the owner pro- poses to reduce his flock to 5o, for it is only above that figure that the order applies. Consequently various local families whom he has been supplying will be supplied no longer. Two days later I asked another friend how many poultry he now had. " I've reduced them to 48," he answered. What had he done with the rest? " Killed them." In yet another case a local farmer has got rid of the whole of his 500 odd birds. If they all went on laying for other owners no harm would be done, but many, will unquestionably be killed for the table. The price of dead poultry is fixed, but anyone is apparently free to buy a live one at what price he likes and kill it, or have it killed, himself. Altogether Lord Woolton seems to have set us well on the road to egglessness. For purposes of enumeration, I under- stand, all chickens above two months must be counted, though there is no possibility of their laying eggs till they are over six months old. The status of cocks seems uncertain.
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