Lord Rhondda and British Food-Control

ON July 2, 1918, Lord Rhondda, the second British Food-Controller, and the substantial creator of the great British Ministry of Food, died after a lingering illness of some months’ duration. Lord Rhondda had been in charge of the British Ministry of Food since the retirement of Lord Devonport, early in the summer of 1917. His incumbency therefore extended over almost exactly a year. Some months before his death he had contracted an acute illness from which he had never absolutely recovered. In spite of his weakened condition, England’s need prevailed upon him to stick to his post when his own interests called for his retirement for recuperation. He remained Food-Controller to the day of his death. Lord Rhondda literally died in the trenches.

During the weeks of Lord Rhondda s illness many of the active duties of administration of the Ministry were performed by Mr. J. R. Clynes, the Parliamentary Secretary to the Ministry of Food. The services Mr. Clynes had rendered in representing the Ministry before the British public in the debates of the House of Commons, as well as his labors in the internal conduct of the Ministry, made his succession inevitable from the first. His subsequent appointment to the post has been considered as welcome as it was expected.

A propitious feature of Mr. Clynes’s succession to Lord Rhondda, as of his earlier association with him, lies in the fact that, while the former Food-Controller had in his own affairs always represented the interests of capital, Mr. Clynes had come to his task from activities in labor organization. In conscripting the services of these men the British Premier has demanded and has received, for the good of Great Britain as a whole, without regard to party or private interest, the unswerving devotion of these two outstanding figures in the two great, and sometimes opposed, fields of social and industrial activity.

It may be appropriate to seize the moment of the transfer of England’s food-problems from the hands of one administrator to those of his co-laborer, for a short survey of the record and present accomplishments of the British Ministry of Food. Lord Rhondda’s place in history is secure. In the midst of the battle which brought him low, we can only refer to the main features of the campaign he waged, leaving to other pens and times the more detailed interpretations of his principles and acts.

We in America know something about food-administrations. Our own Mr. Hoover has shown us something of the problems and the opportunities which lie before such an organization in wartime. From a nation which ate, drank, and was merry, with no thought of the morrow, we were changed overnight into a nation which counted the cost of every mouthful, and by a right reckoning counted this cost, not in terms of money alone, but in terms of soldiers and munitions of war and morale. Mr. Hoover taught the American people to save in the midst of plenty. They were not, as was Europe, threatened with a shortened supply at the base of production. The best impulse to saving was an imaginative and ideological one. He taught us that the matter of food goes back to the heart of democracy in its gathering together and in its spreading abroad; that, while the power of legislation lies with the government, administration rests in the hands of the ultimate civic unit, the last citizen in the furthest recess of the nation, the humblest man in the organism of the state. The reciprocal value of this lesson on American standards of citizenship has been abundantly pointed out.

Effectively as these matters have been brought home to the consciousness of Americans during our first year of war, we have permitted ourselves to fall into error in a too narrow interpretation of their significance. We have thought, for instance, that America has been unique in the handling of problems of food; that while our Food-Administration has been an unquestioned success, other administrations have either been failures or have had only a qualified usefulness. This is by no means the case. The war could not have continued as long as it did had not all the Allied nations in Europe had a food-control which effectively administered greatly shortened supplies under seriously aggravated conditions. Like our own Food-Administration the British Food-Ministry has been the popular success of the war. Americans learn with some surprise that the two great Anglo-Saxon democracies have operated their food-administrations upon general principles which are almost identical. It is in the details, which are themselves the outgrowths of local conditions, that the differences are found.

I think perhaps a case might be made showing that the British Food-Ministry has profited by a study of some of the features of the American plan. One seems to find coming into the work of the British Ministry a growing impulse toward dependence upon popular goodwill, supplementing the laws and the edicts under the Defence of the Realm acts, beyond what was found at first; and this, of course, is the American principle. But it is too early as yet to point out influences as between the one and the other administration. When I say that there has been, as between the Food-Administration at Washington and the British Ministry of Food, almost an identity of principle, I mean that Great Britain and America have saved food by almost precisely the same methods. Making allowance for the differences in agricultural and industrial circumstances of the two countries, the face which the Food-Administration has turned to America has been quite similar to the face which the Ministry of Food has turned to Great Britain.

These things being said, it remains to study some of the comparative features of the two administrations. It is of first importance to notice that, while the United States is, by and large, a nation which supplies itself with food, Great Britain is, by and large, a nation which must secure its food from outside. With respect to subsistence the United States is an exporting and Great Britain an importing nation. The small imports of the United States and the smaller exports of Great Britain do not invalidate these general facts, which are of real significance in determining the functions of a food-administration. While it was the business of the United States Food-Administration so to administer its powers as to get the maximum of food out of the country for the service of the Allies at the same time that it was protecting the subsistence and economic interests of its own people, it was the business of the British Ministry of Food to get as much food into the country as possible, and to administer its supplies for the economic subsistence and welfare of the people. While one of the first problems of the United States was-the rising price, and incidentally the depleted store, due to the purchases by Allied buyers, the first problem of Great Britain was an absolute shortage which had to be filled by every means possible.

Events are more important than theory in any narrative, and one may find in the pages of history explanations that no amount of cold reason would uncover. So it is that the first activities of the British Food-Ministry are found long anterior to the existence of the Ministry as such, and before even the problem of economical administration was thought of, in the presence in the markets of the world of British buyers for the army and the navy. And the first necessity for an American FoodAdministration was seen in the necessity to adjust American business to, and in a manner to protect the American consumer from, the activities of the Allied buyers of foodstuffs and munitions. The germ of the British Food-Ministry is found in its buying organisms; the germ of the American Food-Administration is found in its selling organisms.

The Royal Commission on WheatSupplies and the Royal Commission on Sugar-Supplies have been in existence since soon after the beginning of the war, as a part of the machinery of war. Eventually they were merged into and became the foundation stones of the Ministry of Food. These commissions have been severely prescribed in their operations as war-agencies. Mr. Clynes, in his report to Parliament, made the point that though the Ministry, through its commissions on supplies, acts as buyer, it does not act as trader. No profit is made on the gross business of the commissions; commodities are turned over at a cost which covers expenses of administration and no more. Like all food-administrations of the present war, the British Food-Ministry is wedded to the principle of the fixed price in all internal dealings within the circle of the Allies. But this does not refer to purchases made outside this circle. The war created an economic stalemate for self-protection among those associated for one end. It did not abrogate the law of supply and demand in those few and narrow remaining parts of the globe which are not included in this bond of military self-interest. For this reason there was a wide variety in the cost to the commissions of some of the chief commodities. This variety was harmonized in the accounting of the Ministry, in such manner that the profit made in certain imported commodities made up for the loss suffered in local purchases.

So far the activities of these commissions were similar to the activities of the United States Grain Corporation, with this important difference, that while it was the purpose of the Grain Corporation to get grains out of the United States regularly and without dislocating American supplies, it was the business of the royal supply commissions to get grains and sugar into Great Britain. Both worked by similar systems and without profits. Both were capitalized by their governments. Both had an absolute control over all business and manufacturing processes of every kind and order.

So close was the organization of buying for the armies and civil populations of the Allies and the United States, that there was set up the most gigantic commercial organization in the world, which operated without a cent of profit, without dividends, and on the narrowest margin of overhead. The activities of this organization covered the world. It was at once simply a system of bookkeeping and the most powerful agency of control over the necessaries of life that the world has ever seen. On account of financial and shipping conditions this organization was practically administered by Great Britain and the United States. England in her purchasing commissions served the InterAllied Wheat Executive in purchasing and distribution. The United States Food-Administration, in its Division of Coördination of Purchase, in its Grain Corporation, stood at the chute of the bin and regulated the supply and the outflow. The cost of bread to the miner in Nevada and to the ranchman in Arizona was adjusted to the price paid by the governments of Europe for their cereals. The price paid by the Wheat Commission of London was the same price paid by Uncle Sam in Washington for his army and navy. If Great Britain needed any force other than that of the penalties of law to hold her retailers to the established prices, it would be found in the fact that, not only did the government administer its own enactments, but it was actually the dealer from which the retailer got his supplies.

While buying and selling stood at the centre of Food-Administration activities, these did not constitute the entirety of the problem. Because the task was such a large one, because it involved not only the manufacturers and traders in food but all consumers of food as well, food-administrations had to broaden out from their commercial centres, and pay some regard to wider if vaguer social and political principles. At this point began their greatest dangers. You may, as has been discovered, turn big business over to the service of the state with a minimum of readjustment. The corporation has its machinery in such shape that it lies ready to the hand of central governments. But governments have not such easy access to little business or to the millions of consumers. These demand in their handling a particular order of political philosophy.

With regard to these matters we find a difference between the fundamental powers with which the British FoodMinistry was first endowed and the powers upon which Mr. Hoover’s FoodAdministration has had to depend. The powers of the Food-Ministry are absolute and as strong as martial law. As is well known, the powers awarded to the United States Food-Administration by the Lever Act as passed are notable for their absence rather than for their energy. The British Ministry of Food was established under the Defence of the Realm regulations, like the British Constitution an ever-expanding code of law now running to several hundred enactments. Among the chief powers touching food-problems mentioned in the Defence of the Realm regulations are the powers to regulate food-supply, to take possession of food, to regulate the manufacture of and dealing in food, to safeguard the maintenance of foodsupply, to require returns. When it was seen that Great Britain’s food-requirements were going to demand more administration than that involved in the buying of sugar, grain, and meats, the responsibility of encouraging the increase in production was placed upon the agricultural authorities of the King’s government. The first measure looking to conservation and control was passed November 16, 1916, when the Board of Trade was given power to make regulations as to the food-supply of the kingdom. Under these powers a FoodController was immediately appointed. The first order in food-control was issued November 20, 1916, before the appointment of Lord Devonport, and had to do with the conservation of flour and bread. The Ministry of Food was established along with the ministries of Labor and Shipping, and the Air Board, by act of December 22, 1916.

All the acts of the British Food-Ministry have been based upon the penal law, and this has been rigorously enforced. But England soon learned that law was not enough. The power of ministries is the power of the people. Unless the people are behind the laws, the execution of the law falls down. In spite of the difference in powers between the two administrations, there was little divergence in principle. In the absence of powers, and supplementary to them, Mr. Hoover called upon the volunteer good-will of business and the populace. He organized the FoodAdministration upon the principle of centralization of responsibility and distribution of administration, and Lord Rhondda followed the same principles. In spite of the strong provisions of the Defence of the Realm regulations, he placed his main dependence upon the people of Great Britain. He centralized the responsibilities of his Ministry and decentralized its functions. The strong place the British Food-Ministry occupies in the hearts of the British people to-day, as well as the marked success that has followed upon its regulations, are tributes to the broad and enlightened spirit in which the Ministry has been conducted.

The test of the Ministry came in the matter of rationing. Lord Rhondda and his advisers hesitated to take the step. And yet it was the one thing needful to quiet discontent and cement the sympathies of the people with the service of this prime necessity of the motherland. The fault of the administrator often lies in the fact that he asks too little rather than too much. Like America’s immediate acceptance of conscription, Great Britain’s hearty coöperation in rationing was an assurance to officialdom that it is not wrong in placing dependence upon the people. Rationing eliminated injustices and anxiety, and it equalized burdens. Before the rationing system was introduced, the ’queue ’ evil had grown to serious proportions. Mr. Clynes estimates that the number of people drawn up in queues in one week was not less than 1,330,000. These were caused, not so much by shortages as by fear of shortage. England introduced her first ration cards about February 1, 1918. She came to a full national system of rationing on July 13, at this time beginning the rationing of sugar, fats, meat, and bread, with extra coupons in the book for things later to be placed on the ration list.

With the introduction of rationing the last doubt with regard to the success of the British Food-Ministry was removed. Britain now has food sufficient to satisfy all probable and even improbable demands; the food is well and fairly distributed; it is not wasted; and, above all, every British housewife is a colleague of the Food-Ministry.

Two points remain to be considered as distinguishing the British Food-Ministry from our own Food-Administration. With us the Food-Administration came to price-fixing involuntarily, and without express legal authority (with one or two well-known exceptions), but was led to it by the logic of circumstances. Price-fixing is a part of the spirit as well as of the letter of the British law. Prices were fixed at every stage, from the producer to the consumer, and were based always upon cost plus a reasonable profit. No feature of British food-administration, not even the purchase of supplies, was more fundamental to the work of the Ministry than the principle of maximum prices. Social justice, the necessities of war, and the encouragement of production, all demanded and enforced this principle.

So far I have said nothing about the subsidizing of bread. This is because, while the practice was clearly at variance with our own, it was based upon a principle which is simple, and once expounded must be accepted at its own value. Each country does things in its own way; and if Great Britain chose to quiet social and industrial unrest by helping to pay out of taxes some of the cost of the bread served at your table and mine, the most we can say is that it was her way of doing things and nothing was lost thereby. The necessity of keeping down the consumption of bread while its price was retained at pre-war figures, about twenty cents for a fourpound loaf, presented a nice problem in administration, but evidently it was satisfactorily solved. Bread has required a subsidy of about $200,000,000 a year.

An argument other than the social one was found for the subsidy on potatoes. This subsidy, first projected in order to make it possible to enforce the use of potatoes in bread, was expected to run to about $25,000,000 the first year. Instead of that it amounted to only about $7,500,000, and in addition secured an increase in production of 680,000 tons over the year before, which, at the present price of potatoes, and in view of their value as food-stuffs, indicates that the British Food-Ministry made a very good business turn indeed.

The British Food-Ministry and the United States Food-Administration faced their second year of aggressive work together. Both had grown from practically nothing in the summer of 1917 to world-compass in 1918. The British Ministry of Food was functioning through some 2000 local foodcommittees. Its central and provincial personnel numbered upwards of 7000. From the start both, by their success, were a strong augury of victory for the powers banded together against German aggression.