LETTERS TO THE EDITOR.
[Letters of the length of one of our leading paragraphs are .often more read, and therefore more effective, than those which fill treble the space.] FOOD FOR BREWERS. [To THE EDITOR OP THE "SPECTATOR."] Sia,—May. I put on record in the weighty columns of the Spectator a fact that should not be omitted from the history of Britain in
these days when famine looms ahead ? A well-known London caterer supplies meals for forty thousand working people every day, and he has at the London Docks a great quantity of sugar awaiting delivery. It has come through mines and submarines, through all the hazards that shipping must face in these days, but our mine-sweepers brought it safely in. My friend, who had bought the sugar from the Philippines, sent to the Docks to fetch it, but instead of his sugar he received this note from the Port of London Authority : "Delivery of this sugar stopped by Food Con- troller, unless for brewers." I will not trust myself to comment on this in the dignified columns of the Spectator, but surely national outrage cannot further go.—I am, Sir, &c.,
ARTHUR Mss.
[Have we not the right to describe this as a national humilia- tion ? One would have supposed that the Food Controller would in all his actions lean to the conservation of food and of so regulating affairs that any substance which could provide nourishment should be saved for that purpose. Here we find him doing the exact opposite. Instead of saying : ' No one shall clear this sugar from the Docks without giving an undertaking that it shall only be used to feed the people,' he says in effect: ' No one shall clear this sugar who does not give an undertaking that it shall not be used to feed the people, but shall be destroyed from the food standpoint.' And this in time of famine ! Are we mad that we allow such things to be ? We have no very great faith in the House of Commons, but one would have thought such an incident as this might have aroused some feeling there. Yet, save for a question to Captain Bathurst a fortnight or more ago, nothing has been done. If the Temperance Party in the House were worthy of their trust they would surely have moved the adjourn- ment of the House every night till the ban was removed from this sugar, and instead of being devoted to destruction it had been preserved for food.—En. Spectator.]
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