R. J. Hammond

“ The preparations of the rationing machinery, while throwing up more knotty problems for immediate resolution than that of the commodity controls, nevertheless made rather better progress, partly because there was not the same need for outside consultation, partly because it leant even more heavily on previous experience, as summarised in the work of Sir William Beveridge's Sub-Committee on rationing. That experience prescribed a national rationing system based a consumer-retailer tie and hence the establishment of a network of divisional and local food offices. ”

“ A shadow divisional organisation was ready to hand in the civil emergency food organisation that had been maintained, as a legacy of the old Ministry of Food, on account of its proven utility in the great Railway Strike of 1919. The Divisional Officers, persons of local standing who received a small retaining fee for their readiness to serve in emergency, were brought into consultation with the Department, and a few of the older ones were persuaded to make way for younger men. ”

“ The Department felt that rationing might be required not more than a month after war broke out, and was prepared to make do with an interim, simplified scheme for three months while the documents for the full scheme were being printed. The Stationery Office, facing an avalanche of printing orders to be executed urgently on the outbreak, could not guarantee to deliver interim ration cards under a month or full ration books under six months. There was nothing for it but to abandon the interim scheme and print sufficient ration documents for the permanent scheme before the war broke out. ”

“ The Department, fearing that nominated members might be able to use the Committee as a means of putting trade pressure on the Ministry of Food, sought allies by calling upon the bakers and dairymen, who, since they did not deal in foods expected to be rationed, had not hitherto been consulted, to give their views on the filling of trade seats; and as it had expected and hoped, these strongly opposed giving grocers and butchers preferential treatment. The controversy dragged on for month; it was eventually settled by increasing the membership to fifteen seats, of which five should be traders ”

“ The image of the pre-war plans, in their civilian sector, is not that of an army, moving towards its objective in accordance with flexible, adaptable strategy. Rather is that of a number of intelligent individuals making each his own way towards a common destination, and finding mutual interests en route. ”

“ Broadly speaking, there was nothing in the 1936 pattern of food supplies and distribution, intricate though it was, that would make the controls of 1918 obsolete. Plans for a future war, assuming it to be of a similar character to the last, could reasonably be based on them, with only such modifications as previous experience, and the opportunity of planning the structure as a whole, would obviously suggest. The Food (Defence Plans) Department could not have seen itself as embarking on a second ‘state trading adventure’ ”

“ The political climate of Britain, in the years before 1939, was not propitious for the type of ruthless calculation that the prospect of modern war demands; the governing view of the time hated war and distrusted collectivist planning such as war must entail. ”

“ Processors, such a flour millers, sugar refiners, and oilseed crushers, would operate as directed on allocated raw materials, at margins of profit to be negotiated with the Ministry of Food. So, too, wholesale distribution would be subject to Ministry orders. ‘The final stage is reached when the retailer, registered with his local Food Control Committee, has delivered to him at a fixed price the regular weekly supplies required to meet the needs of his registered customers’, to whom he in turn would sell at a fixed price. ”

“ In the economic field, the answer can only be no; the Committee did not, could not, give a lead, and the Departments seldom sought it. The Food Sub-Committee, for instance, met in all but three times between March 1937 and the outbreak of war. On those occasions it certainly took important decisions, such as authorising the printing of ration books in peacetime. ”

“ The retail cooperative societies wanted one seat for their officials (their members, of course, were entitled to sit as consumers) ; the butchers’ and grocers’ organisations wanted to be empowered to nominate representatives. ”