The publication dates of the weekly papers making it impos-
sible for them to give more than the briefest reference, if any reference at all, to proceedings in Parliament on a Wednesday, readers of this column have had to wait till now for the vicarious exhilaration to which they will unquestionably be stirred by contemplation of the inventory of liquor stores laid in by the Overseas Food Corporation before its unlamented demise. The list, as given in the House on March 7th, is as follows: 3,783 bottles of sherry, 1,489 bottles of liqueurs, 7,686 bottles of brandy, 4,759 bottles of gin, 4,140 bottles of rum, 40,000 bottles of Tennant's beer and, as fitting climax, " 64,508 bottles of Revolver ale—brewed to keep only three months, and which, when offered for sale, had already been in store for twelve months." This represents surplus stocks offered for sale by the Corporation in a single year. Enquiry whether consumption had been on a com- parable scale drew only a frivolous reply from the Minister concerned. All the stocks were, of course, paid for by the British taxpayer. No doubt the Overseas Food Corporation thought their staff in Central Africa would need something to keep out the cold, but when Mr. Lennox-Boyd describes the whole affair with studied mildness as " most scandalous," I cannot dissent.
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