of Food at the end of 1918, comparing the estimated consumption per head of certain essential foods in the United Kingdom, Germany and Holland before and during the war. Another striking contrast emerges in the report of a committee appointed at the Ministry of Food at the end of 1917 to prepare a comprehensive scale of rations covering meat, cereals, fats and sugar. The committee based their scale on estimates of the minimum numbers of calories per day required by various classes of persons, according to age and occupation, and of the proportion that, having regard to other foods available, should be provided by these essential foods. Comparing their scale with the actual rations in force during 1917 in Hamburg (taken as typical of German industrial conditions), the committee found that the latter scale represented in respect of these essential foods and potatoes not more than ⅔ of the minimum requirements, while the shortage of less essential foods was probably even greater. The German ration of fat was reduced still further as from Jan. 1 1918, making the Hamburg rations per week for ordinary adults as follows:—Bread 4⅜ lbs.; Meat 9 oz.; Fats 2½ oz.; Sugar ⅓ lb.; Potatoes 7⅛ lbs. Men engaged in physical labour received a supplementary ration of 1¾ lbs. of bread (per week), and those engaged in exceptionally hard physical labour received altogether 7⅜ lbs. of bread, ¾ lb. of meat, 4½ oz. of fats, ⅓ lb. of sugar and 9⅜ lbs. of potatoes. These men would be few in number.
Rationing in Great Britain 1917-20.
| Article. | Period of Rationing (whether local or national). |
Amount of Weekly Ration per Head. |
| Sugar | Nationally—from Dec. 31 1917 to Nov. 29 1920 | 8 oz. Dec. 31 1917 to Jan. 27 1919; thereafter sometimes 12 oz. and sometimes 8 oz. with a drop to 6 oz. for a few weeks in Sept.-Oct. 1919, and again Jan.-March 1920. |
| Butter and Margarine | Feb. 16 1919 for both fats, and to May 30 1920 for butter alone. | 5 or 6 oz. for both fats under national scheme. The London scheme started with a ration of 4 oz. The separate butter ration after Feb. 1919 varied from 1 to 2 oz. |
| Lard | Locally from Jan. 1918 (1,500,000); nationally from July 14 1918 to Dec. 16 1918. | 2 oz. nationally and in most local schemes. |
| Meat (Uncooked Butcher's Meat) | London and home counties from Feb. 25 1918 (10,000,000) with a few other local schemes; nationally from April 7 1918 to Dec. 15 1919. | Under the London Scheme 3 coupons entitling to 4d. worth each, or 1s. altogether (about 1 lb. with average bone), subsequently changed to 1s. 3d. Under the national scheme varying values as follows: 1s. 3d., 1s., 1s. 4d., 1s. 8d., 1s. 4d., 1s. 8d., 2s. |
| Bacon and Ham. | London and home counties from Feb. 25 1918 (10,000,000) with a few other local schemes; nationally from April 7 1918 to July 29 1918. | Under the London scheme 4 oz. with bone per coupon. Under the national scheme 5 oz. and 8 oz. |
| Other Meats | All meat (including preserved meat, poultry, game, offal, venison and horse-meat) was included in original London scheme, but control was gradually relaxed. | Varying rations. |
| Jam | Locally from early part of 1918 (500,000); Nationally from Nov. 4 1918 to April 15 1919. | 4 oz. under national scheme. |
| Cheese | Locally from early part of 1918 (2,000,000). | 1½ oz. to 2 oz. |
| Tea | Locally from Dec. 1917 (17,500,000). | 1½ oz. to 2 oz. |
|
Notes.—The numbers in parentheses give the maximum numbers covered by local schemes of rationing. The number covered by national rationing, i.e. the civilian population of Great Britain, in 1918 was 39,000,000. In the London scheme and the first national meat scheme (April 7 1918) four coupons were provided to cover all meat of every kind. Three of these coupons only might be used for uncooked butcher's meat; any of them could be used for bacon, poultry, preserved meat, etc. The normal ration at the outset was thus 1s. worth ( = ¾ lb. with average bone) of uncooked butcher's meat, together with 4 oz. of bacon with average bone, or in place of the bacon, varying quantities of offal, poultry, game, etc. Later the rations were raised. |
The weekly rations in Vienna by the end of 1918 were even lower:—Bread 2½ lbs. (with an additional 2 lbs. for heavy workers); Meat 4½ oz.; Fat 1½ oz.; Sugar nil, and Potatoes 1⅛ lbs.
The Austrian figures represent a breakdown of supplies and society. The German rations are those on which the civilian population of Germany sustained the war and made munitions during 1917 and 1918. They show a power in the human body to endure over months and years, at whatever cost in permanent loss of health and vigour, a scale of nutrition far below the minimum prescribed by scientific authority. They indicate at the same time the intensity of the strain to which the rationing regulations of the enemy countries were subjected.
The advantage to the British food controller in obtaining so large a part of his supplies from overseas was equally decisive. Imports were all brought automatically and completely under public control; nothing remained save distribution and the fixing of prices. The German and Austrian food controllers had to rely almost exclusively on home-grown supplies; they were faced by and failed to solve the problem of obtaining from the home producers a fair proportion of their produce for distribution under the rationing system. To a small extent this fact must be taken as a correction of the previous statement of rations as showing the actual consumption; an appreciable part of the total supplies escaping public control altogether was sold as contraband (Schleichhandel) to the urban consumers. The actual consumption in each family was the ration plus a varying proportion of contraband. The contraband trade, however, in Germany at least cannot have benefited more than a small proportion of the industrial population and was mainly an advantage to the well-to-do and to the hotels. It had a disastrous reaction on the general respect paid to the rationing regulations, and deprived them of that support of public opinion which was so marked in Great Britain.
The third great advantage of the British food controllers was that, by securing adequate tonnage for cereals, they were able to avoid the rationing of bread stuffs, and the elaborate and contentious system of graduated rations for different classes of workers which would otherwise have been inevitable. So long as rationing is confined to articles other than bread, a flat scale of rations for all adults, whether engaged in sedentary or in severe physical work, is possible; the larger amount of calories which the latter classes must have, in order to perform their work, can be obtained by increasing their consumption of bread. If bread as well as meat, fats and sugar are rationed this individual adjustment of consumption, according to the physical energy required, becomes impossible. The rationing system itself must provide differentiated rations for men doing varying kinds of physical labour or doing little or no physical work at all.
All the continental countries which rationed bread-stuffs had accordingly to introduce “supplementary” rations for heavy workers of different grades; the classification of the population for this purpose was one of the most difficult and contentious
