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HomeMy WebLinkAboutThe Seaforth News, 1943-03-25, Page 6TAT. V SE:.FORTT NEWS THt1RSPAY,. MARCN 2S, 1943. A COUNTRY EDITOR SEES WRITTEN SPECIALLY FOR THE WEEKLY NEWSPAPERS OF FANAPA try JIM (MEENRUAT, Editor of the SUN SWIFT CURRENT SASNATCHIWAN ENFORCEMENT—FOOD How do they get away with th with that? Even your own frien say, "They can't do this to me, wasn't hoarding." You've hea plenty of that stuff, And Fred McGregor, grey haired, soft spok Enforcement Administrator of Wartime Prices and Trade Board, Ottawa, tries to help find' the an wers. There's nothing he fears mo than to have his personnel labell Gestapo and such things. He realizes, of course,that an in- vestigator in your region, invested with new and unaccustomed power, mightthrow his weight around a little and, by gosh, that's hard to stomach, But supply of men, capable, is thin, says Mr. McGregor. They keep checking on the checkers, ev- en; ven; sometimes it takes time to find out. "We ca ivory tows - Whether it's on rentals, hoarding or anything e honest sta enforceme al division, ting "local circumstan eration, Al he says, is whether it should go to the courts or not. Then the law does the rest. About Foods Administration And now I"ll finish this with a fent' is, words about talking^ with, Foods Ad s ministrator Gordon Taggart, who I I was shortly leaving his job and Ot- rd tawa to sit in the agricultural drivi. A er's seat in Saskatchewan again, en His staff includes nen of expert the knowledge of the various food cont at =dales, directly from. farm and S- various food processing and distrib- re uting industries, "The food adminis ed tration staff determines what to do ,"• he said, and much of the action: which follows may be carried out by regional, offices of the Board, en- forcement or. rationing divisions. You see, food supply naturally di- vides itself into two groups, foods of domestic origin or imports, When domestic supply is threatened as a result of lower price established . un- der the ceiling, one of three things is done. The article can be removed from the ceiling entirely, as done with a number of fresh fruits and vegetables. The price could be in- creased as with beef, lamb and some other products which have a seaso.nal price range and which required high- er prices to maintain supply, or, thirdly, subsidies were added to the existing price. You remember how the latter was done extensively in the case of milk, dairy products and a number of canned items, such as tomatoes. Action with respect to mainten- ance of supply has been taken main- ly in conjunction with or in co-oper- ation with the Department of Agri- culture: In the case of essential im- ported foods, he pointed out, the same general principle is applied, to subsidize imports if the price ceiling threatens supply or to lift ceilings from the threatened products. There it is in a nutshell, and I hope there's a kernel in it. And, he added, did Mr. Taggart, that the most common practice of imports has been for the Commodity Prices Stabilization Corporation to bulk purchase at the best possible price and then sell into the domestic trade at whatever price is necessary to maintain ceilings. The determination of requirement and the management of distribution has been the responsibility of the Foods Administration. They control prices and keep up supplies of food for the civilian population, and, to - assist other government bodies, it also acts to requisition or otherwise acquire food for the soldier boys'and girls and other priority needs in cases of particular commodities which are in short supply. Mr. Taggart made it sound so humdrum that I lost my appetite for dinner. And there's not a secret. Subsidies are not handouts, and the trade gets. no special benefit from them. They are only paid if there is no other way of securing a sufficient supply of an article without exceed- ing the ceiling price, and are limited only to essential consumer goods, and next week's article concludes the series. n't decide local cases in an r in Ottawa; he said lse they do try to get an tement of fact from the nt counsel in each region and they do insist on get color" with it. Personal ccs are taken into consid- 1 the administration does, pass on a case to decide Kicks—Well-Founded and Unfounded "We have to watch our step, too, from those whose toes have been stepped on; who make spite charges against persons they may have a grudge against, many, many of which have been investigated and discovered to be unfounded." And in the converse, he showed me the file and memo, where he had just that day personally telephoned an old foreign -born woman in Montreal to apologize for the actions of an in- vestigator who was too smart alto- gether. "What of the future?" I asked. He hitched closer to me to emphas- ize the point as he warned that more difficult times are ahead, with dan- gers of "black market," etc. "Tell the people they are only helping themselves and they can be of tre- mendous help to us as the more crit- ical times approach. We would rath- er have compliance than enforce- ment any time." From Dec. 1, 1941, to Dec. 31, 1942, they had 1,552 prosecutions for the whole of Canada, and 1,438 convictions. You and I who know what's going on can reason it out for ourselves whether they are a Gesta- po gang or an administration to check with firmness. Britnell Views Food Situation I hate to hurry on with so much material of interest available, but the series is just about finished. I might give you a few thoughts from Dr, G. E. Britnell, economic adviser of the Foods Administration, tousled headed, earnest fellow whose office walls are covered with colored charts. Butter rationing? All part of the over-all picture we had, be ex- plained. Figure it out: more lunch pails, more sandwiches; more civilian workers, armed forces; Red. Cross necessities; Alascan Highway; U.S. troops in Canada; commitments to West Indies and Newfoundland, Why, the use of fluid milk increased by over 10 per cent. over the previ- ous year. Our per capita consump- tion of butter in Canada is 26 lbs., while that of cheese only 4 lbs., and it takes two of cheese to make one of butter. Beef? Yup, he admitted a tight position there, but remember that in general there is nothing in its over- all position in Canada which would dictate it if we had no responsibili- ties to the United Nations. It is ob- vious that we cannot maintain high- er consumption levels of meats than others of the United Nations, say the United States. It is unlikely that we will avoid meat rationing in the trend of events, he says, and that takes in beef, pork, bacon, veal, lamb and mutton. With the new feeding pro- gramme, however, he is certain we will have more beef in the long run. Nok, co-operation is the slogan, As I got up to leave hp shook hands and said with 0 smile: "Re- member, fellow, we are still the best fed people in' the world," 'I had had baeon, 2 eggs for breakfast, Could have had more. Haw in heck can we grouse sincerely? British Industries In Wartime By Walter R. Legge. To report on British Industries was not one of the main objects of our trip t0 Britain, and we did not make the intensive study of them that we did of the fighting forces and services. However, we were given. an opportunity to visit some plants and to see what British workers are doing to Help win the war. Probably the most interesting of the plants we visited was an im- mense andeground factory which was just going into production. These underground factories are not dug out especially for the purpose. There are many large caverns, some nat- ural and others the result of year's of mining, which can. easily be convert- ed into good factories, A •large elevator took•us ninety feet below the surface of the ground to where this factory is located, The factory itself covers a vast area and only uses a'small part of the cavern; One of our guides told us that he had gone down into the cavern before any work on it had been started, and he would have been lost if he, had 1101 been with a local guide who knew 11 well, The floor has been cemented and the walls and pillars painted a light colour. This underground factory is brilliantly illuminated by fluorescent lights. The ventilation is wonderful, Air: Is .taken ltl from aibove ground, cleaned' and heated, and <iistribtited by viaducts: 'Ruder the floor, while the used air is carried off at the roof, An example or modern scientific methods is found in the disposal e1 sewage. It is Irnrnped to the surface and chemically treated to extract gases which are used to. propel the factory service. oars,..• The factory Is surprisingly clean, and bright It is hard to believe that it is ninety feet tinder the ground. There is a large restaurant' under• ground as well as another on top of the ground. Each of them is capable 01 feeding several thousand em- ployees in a scientific and efficient manner. One of the problems in connection .with this. factory was the supply of labor.. The number of workers at hand was limited. This has been over - conte by, bringing workers there in largo numbers of buses and by build- ing dormitories and houses, :The dor- mitories are made up of single and double rooms; compact, but well fur- nished and comfortable. The build- ings are of stone or brick and ap- peared to :be fireproof. and sub- stantial- The houses, some of which we were shown through, are small, but bright and comfortable, and planned to make .the most of every bit of space.. They are certainly a big im- provement on the average workman's We also visited aircraft factories, aircraft engine factories and other munition factories. One morning we arrived at ane of these factories. The entrance was not very impressive. In fact it looked more like sonic residential flats than a factory. Yet we spent most of the day going from building to building to see various operations in progress. A fine lunch was served to us in the executive' offices. The exact number of employees cannot be given but it was in the tens of thousands. A very large proportion of the workers are women, many of them doing jobs that it was once thought could onl ybe done by men. Before the war these women were hair- dressers, barmaids, . waitresses, school teachers, shop assistants, do- mestics and workers in smaller indus- trial plants. Others had never worked before. Some of the machinery in , this fac- tory was made in the United States, but much of it bore nameplates of British firms. The general appearance and opera- tion of this and other factories is about the sante as in similar factories in Canada and the United • States. However, closer study shows. that op- erations are probably more broken down and scatered than on this side of the Atlantic. There is a good reason for this, In using so many workers with little experience in their particular work, it was easier to teach them one simple operation than it would have been to teach then to handle a complicated mach- ine which would do several opera- tions at once, ARITHMETIC . AND NUTRITION High school' students who can obtain a complete hot meal or supplement lunches brought from home at the school cafeteria are combining Readin' 'Rritin', and 'Rithmetac with Nutrition. The school cafeteria Plan is growing in favor with school authorities; parents, and ,children because • experiments in which nutritious lunches have been provided for school children have shown conclusively that the project has great merit. • Elaborate cafeteria facilities and equipment are not necessary. Women's Institutes, Parent -teacher associations; and other volunteer groups can find in school lunches a community project in applied nutrition that will pay large dividends in improved health among the children of the community. The system is also more flexible. If some part is knocked out byenemy action or otherwise, the entire pro- duction will not be stopped. These factories are unexcelled 'for precision of craftsmanship, and their production targets are continually being exceeded. This is going to be a big factor in overcoming the Hun., Latest reports are that the Germans are worried over the superiority of the English in precision and quantity of production: Most of these employees work fifty- six hours a week. When we had a conference with Britain's Minister of Labor, Mr. Ernest Bevin, he told us that there is no gain in working more than fifty-six hoe's a week, and that. he 'was trying to get it down to a fifty-three or fifty-two hours' week. He added, "We are in the fourth year of the war. Most of the virile people have been taken for the forces. Age groups in industry are higher. Forty-seven is the average age of the Liverpool dockworkers, and in the building trades, the aver- age age is front forty-five to forty-six." We asked two different Cabinet Ministers if England had reached the Saturation point: in manpower. One answered that there was no such thing as a saturation point in labor, and the other replied, "We are a long way past the saturation point." We came away from these factories deeply impressed with the fact that the civilian workers are just es he'd at work, just as serious in their tasks, and, just as anxious to do their ut- most to hasten victory as the mem- bers of the Navy, Army and Air Force. SPITFIRES OF THE SEA Britain entered the war with only twenty-five ,motor torpedo boats. To- day motor torpedo boats and motor gunboats are based all around the British Isles. It is to these small, powerfully motored craft that Ad- miralty communiques are referring, when they mention "light coastal forces." They have virtually no armour, and depend for their protec- tion upon their high speed, the light- ning skill of their skippers, and the fire-power of their guns and tor- pedoes. • They participate in North Sea and Channel convoy escorts as protection against their Nazi opposite numbers, the E boats. They also engage in at- tacks on their own against German coast -hugging convoys. To attack a convoy, they lie in watt for the enemy merchant ships. Being only sixty feet long and low in outline, they invariably, spot the enemy before they are seen thenh- selves, Then at a speed so low that their engines are almost silent, they slip towards the quarry. At the pre- cise moment, the throttles are open- ed up and the enemy finds himself being attacked before he has had time to get into action, After this first burst comes the second round of the serap when enemy motor craft try to intercept the attack on the convoy ships. Then a noisy battle ensues at fifty miles an hour with tactics rather similar to a battle in the air between Spitfires and Messerschmitts — battles that are the fastest in naval history. Want and For Sale Ads, 1 !week 35c counter CheckBooks We Fire Selling Quality Books Books are Well Made, Carbon is Clean and Copies Readily. All styles, Carbon Leaf and Black Back. Prices as Low as You Can Get Anywhere, Get our Quotation on Your Next Order. • The Seatorth News SEAFORTH, ONTARIO,