How it really was

Bread Rationing (Conclusion)

11 February 2006

A New Year and a new term.

I have finished my first two essays on the MA course in Contemporary British History.

One of the essays was on Bread Rationing in the UK after the war. Earlier posts on this blog show how I became interested in the topic, and here is my final contribution to the subject on this blog:

Bread Rationing was introduced in the UK by the Labour Government in July 1946 and remained in force for two years. Bread had never been rationed during the war and at the time was seen as the height of austerity.

The measure was vehemently opposed by the Conservatives, including Churchill, who called it “one of the gravest announcements that I have ever heard made in the House [of Commons] in the time of peace” and the Daily Mail reported on 3rd July 1946, that it was “the most hated measure ever to have been presented to the people of this country." 

However, in practice Bread Rationing turned out to be completely ineffective in reducing the level of consumption in the UK and most historians agree it was “probably unnecessary."

The question I tried to answer was: why did the government not only impose a measure they knew would be unpopular and which in practice proved to be ineffective in achieving its stated purpose, but persist with it for two years in the face of significant opposition at home?

Here is my conclusion in the final paragraph in the essay:

At first sight, the brief two year period of bread rationing may appear as a minor issue; the government simply followed the practice, well proven in wartime, of controlling demand for essential supplies at a time when there was a potential risk of shortages. This is at best a partial explanation. The Attlee government’s decisions on bread rationing were directly affected by four of the gravest and most difficult issues it faced during its first three years in office. Firstly, the ineffectiveness and unpopularity of a policy of direct controls, seen by the public as necessary in war but increasingly superfluous in peacetime. Secondly, virulent opposition from some elements of the public, spurred on by conservative politicians and the press. Thirdly, total dependency on the United States for essential supplies and the means to pay for them. Fourthly and finally, having won the war, having to decide how best to win the peace, at a time of shifting allegiances among the victors and vanquished.

It was a fascinating story. In the course of the research for the essay I learnt about conditions of life in Britain after the war, the desperate economic situation facing both Britain and the rest of Europe, how close much of Europe, including Germany, but not Britain, came to starvation and famine, the international politics of food supplies, the emergence of cold war diplomacy and the division of Europe.

For a taste (!) of what it was like at the time, I looked up British Pathe’s archive of cinema newsreels on the web http://www.britishpathe.com and was amazed at what I found. (Search for “Bread Rationing”). Low resolution downloads for private study are free.

The newsreels include the Minister of Food, John Strachey, justifying the government’s decision, protests by the British Housewives’ League and the Master Bakers’ Federation, plus a film called “Germany’s food – the Truth” which includes pictures of a factory in Germany which converted tons of beech and pine logs into fake liver sausage for human consumption.

Bread Rationing (Part 4)

21st December 2005

In my first posting on this subject I asked: why did the Labour Government go ahead with a measure they knew would be unpopular, and which in the end turned out to be “probably unnecessary”?

The answer to this question does appear to be in the article by Ina Zweiniger-Bargielowska on “Bread Rationing in Britain, July 1946 – July 1948” in the journal “Twentieth Century British History.” (Vol 4 No 1 1993 P57-85)

It seems that bread was rationed in the UK “not primarily for economic reasons – in order to save wheat – but for psychological and political reasons” as part of extensive negotiations between the British government and the United States on the allocation of North American wheat and on the terms of US loans and Marshall Aid necessary to secure the revival of the British economy after the war.

Her conclusion at the end of the article is that bread rationing helped Britain to “retain its privileged position as the only food importing country which did not suffer a significant reduction in calorie consumption.”

Britain, the United States and Canada were the three members of the “Combined Food Board,” part of the wartime supplies machinery which took charge of world cereals allocations. Britain was in a favoured position as the only food importer on the board, in a sellers market.

In 1946, Britain was under intense pressure to justify its relatively high wheat and flour stocks and high allocation of wheat imports, while the Board cut allocations to others, including European importers, India, military authorities in Europe and Asia and the United Nations Relief and Rehabilitation Administration (UNRRA), which looked after the millions of refugees in post-war Europe.

The British government were also trying to persuade the United States to assume responsibility for feeding the population in the British Zone in Germany, where there was an acute shortage of food. Rations had been cut in March 1946 to less than 1,000 calories a week, well under half the ration in Britain.

Negotiations at the Combined Food Board reached a head on 10 April 1946. In a debate on a UNRAA request for allocation of stocks, the UK government proposed that Britain would be prepared to ration bread, if the US and Canada did the same. This was a negotiating ploy, as it was obvious that the US and Canada would not agree to this, but they were prepared to introduce other measures, including a reduction in the amount of wheat fed to livestock. This amounted to a 25% reduction in their own domestic consumption and therefore released stocks for distribution to UNRRA and Europe (without requiring a reduction in the British allocation).

British consumption was relatively secure due to long standing trade relations with Canada. A new four year agreement was signed with Canada on 24^th July 1946, three days after rationing was introduced.

Having make the offer to introduce bread rationing in April, the UK government found it was politically impossible to go back on it, even though there was, strictly speaking, no real need to introduce rationing in the UK, as the ration was set at more or less the same level as previous consumption, and resulted in virtually no savings.

A UK Cabinet minute on 18 July 1946, three days before rationing was introduced, said:

“We were bringing great pressure to bear on the United States government to provide enough to meet the minimum needs of the British zone … on the basis that we could not supply more for the zone ourselves; but, if we delayed the introduction of rationing in the United Kingdom, we should be conveying the impression that our own needs were no longer so urgent as had been represented.”

Rationing was also important to secure ratification of the US loans and Marshall Aid which were needed to keep the British economy afloat. The first post-war US loan to the UK was agreed in December 1945 but not ratified by Congress until15^th July 1947. In a note to his cabinet colleague Herbert Morrison on 20^th July, justifying the introduction of bread rationing, due to come into effect the following day, Prime Minister Attlee said:

“to go back now would have a bad effect on the United States Administration who would think that we announced rationing in order to influence the loan debate.”

Two months later, in September 1946 the Minister of Food, John Strachey, proposed lifting rationing, but the policy was reaffirmed in October on the basis that:

“no diversion from United Kingdom stocks could provide enough to make adequate provision for the British zone; and if any such diversions were made, the United States Administration would be led to suppose that our situation was less serious than it really was.”

As late as November 1947, when Strachey again proposed to end bread rationing, this was rejected on the ground that:

“in view of the acute wheat shortage in Europe and of the Marshall Plan discussions, this course is, for the time being, politically impossible.”

Bread rationing in the UK finally ended in July 1948 after Marshall Aid had been secured earlier in the year.

Bread Rationing (Part 3)

4 December 2005

It appears that the expert on  bread rationing is Ina Zweiniger-Bargielowska who has written extensively on austerity and food rationing in the UK in the post-war period.

The first piece by her I found is the chapter on “Consensus and Consumption: Rationing, Austerity and Controls after the War” in the book “The Myth of Consensus” edited by Harriet Jones and Michael Kandiah (Macmillan Press 1996). In this she says:

“…food was the most important single issue on the public mind during the late 1940s as a result of unprecedented shortages. Bread was rationed for the first time from July 1946. The policy was controversial because the entire system of food control depended on ample supplies of bread and potatoes, as well as restaurant and canteen meals. Labour justified bread rationing as a necessary step to guarantee the bread supply and ensure fair shares in the context of the world food shortage, which required sacrifice in Britain to prevent famine in continental Europe and elsewhere.”

“During the spring and summer of 1946 intense opposition to bread rationing was led by the Conservative Party, which doubted that the policy was really necessary and that substantial savings in wheat could be made. The Party leadership deplored the added burden placed on consumers and alleged that the government had mismanaged the supply situation. The Conservatives were backed by the right-wing press, which highlighted opposition to bread rationing among bakers as well as the British Housewives’ League. This episode was the first concerted campaign against the Labour government on a major policy issue and marked the beginning of the debate about postwar food policy.”

The Conservatives “argued that that austerity was largely due to Labour’s incompetence, mismanagement and socialist inspired policies, which were making matters much worse than they need be. Controls were imposed for control’s sake, while excessive bureaucracy stifled the economy and hampered recovery. The Conservatives claimed that for the majority of the population living standards under Labour were worse than during the 1930s, and that only a return to the free market and the abolition of wartime controls would restore living standards.”

The unpopularity of controls led to a swing away from Labour to the Conservatives, first apparent in the Bexley, Pontypool and Battersea North by-elections in July 1946.

A footnote in this article refers to an earlier (1993) piece in the journal “Twentieth Century British History” on “Bread Rationing in Britain, July 1946 – July 1948.” I must get a copy and read it.

More on Bread Rationing

26 November 2005

I have discovered more about the extraordinary story of bread rationing in the UK after World War Two, from “Snoek Piquante” – an essay by Susan Cooper in the book “Age of Austerity,” edited by Michael Sissons and Philip French (1963).

According to Susan Cooper: “Summed up in the abortive story of bread rationing there is all the frustration and worry and fiddling fuss of life in post-war Britain.”

“…the cumulative distortion of war, and the droughts and bad harvests of 1945, had brought every part of the world a food crisis which, Mr Bevin [the Foreign Secretary] grimly told the United Nations, was “really alarming”.

“The Minister of Food announced on February 5^th, 1946 that the world wheat shortage would mean a cut in bacon, poultry and eggs. Rice, what there was of it, would vanish from the shops. The whaling season had been as poor as the harvest, so the fat ration would be reduced by an ounce. The Government appealed to farmers to sow grain promising them prisoner of war labour (there were still 400,000 Germans in British camps) to help with the ploughing.”

“An emergency conference on European cereal supplied met in London. By now many people in former enemy occupied countries were dangerously near starvation level; rationing there amounted to a uniform thousand calories a day.”

The Prime Minister, Clement Attlee said that: “‘people might feel impelled to send food parcels to Europe… but they would do more good simply by eating less.’ He backed this with a grand gesture by announcing that Britain was willing to ration bread.”

“Three months later, after much havering, the new Minister of Food, Mr Strachey, announced that bread was to be rationed. The size of the coming Canadian harvest was uncertain, and there had been a cut in grain supplies from America.”

“‘That we should have had to do such an unpopular thing,’” wrote Dalton [the Chancellor of the Exchequer] enigmatically fifteen years later, ‘illustrates vividly the urgent shortages of the post-war years, and the inescapable reasons for our gradual loss of backing in the country.’”

“‘Shops were besieged’ reported The Times, ‘by customers asking for six, seven, even ten loaves each – twice or thrice as much bread as their families could eat at the week-end. “The women have gone mad” said a baker.’”

“The bakers, faced with quantities of form-filling and extra controls were furious at the whole idea of rationing. ‘I shall go to jail rather than collect Bread Units from housewives’ said one master baker. ‘This country is getting worse than Germany under the Nazis.’”

“In fact there was never a bread shortage. The first day of rationing was quiet, and by the end of it bakers had loaves and cakes still unsold.”

“Bread rationing itself went on. It was not finally abolished until July 21^st 1948. The ration, in practice proved adequate, no-one went hungry and there were no shortages – but nor was there any great saving of grain.”

In you are wondering what any of this has to do with “Snoek Piquante,” snoek is a fish, related to Barracuda, which was imported from South Africa after the war, in an attempt to improve food supplies.

According to Susan Cooper, in October 1947: “the hungry British first heard the word snoek … Ten million tins of it from South Africa were to replace Portuguese sardines, whose import was restricted by exchange troubles.”

But despite the best efforts of the government to promote it, including publishing recipes for “Snoek Piquante” people seemed to dislike the taste and never took to it.

And so, nearly 3 years later:  “…quiet among the junketings of the Festival of Britain, a mysterious quantity of tinned fish came onto the market, labelled: ‘Selected fish food for cats and kittens.’ It cost tenpence a tin, and its origins were left muffled in tact. One of the distributors admitted that it might be either snoek or barracuda. ‘Cats,’ he said, ‘are very fond of both.’”

Bread Rationing

21^st November 2005

I’m intrigued to know why the Labour Government introduced Bread Rationing in July 1946. Bread had not been rationed all through the war, so its introduction is a powerful case study of austerity in post-war Britain – reinforcing the perception among many people, that things were getting worse, instead of better.

According to Paul Addison in “Now the War is Over” (Jonathan Cape, 1985), early in 1946 the food experts in Washington began to predict a world wheat shortage, aggravated by a shortage of rice. Famine threatened in Germany and in Asia where Britain was responsible for the welfare of India, Burma, Ceylon, Malaya and Singapore, all of which were part of the British Empire. In February 1946 Ben Smith, Minister of Food, announced that in order to divert supplies to threatened areas, the British Government  would reduce imports of wheat for consumption in Britain.

Herbert Morrison was sent to the US to try to persuade the US Administration to adopt a more generous policy towards Great Britain, but “cabled the Cabinet with the astonishing news that he had agreed to a further reduction in supplies of grain for this country, on the understanding that the Americans would share the burden in Germany and India.”

Douglas Jay, who then worked in the Prime Minister’s office as an economic assistant is quoted as saying:

“What it amounted to was that when we were faced in the first year after the war with actual famine in three places in particular, with Germany, India and Malaysia, which has a huge population, you could keep more people alive out of a given ton of wheat by raising the  extraction rate from what I think it normally is, 60 per cent or 70 per cent, this is how the millers express it, to 95 per cent, with the limited amount of wheat we had in the world. That was done and I think as a result of that, probably famines in those areas were avoided.”

Paul Addison goes on to describe how the decision invoked storms of protest from the Conservative opposition.

And in conclusion he says that:

“Bread rationing was probably unnecessary. The threat to grain supplies proved less severe than expected and, since the rations allowed proved adequate there was little reduction in the consumption.”

Bread rationing controls were eventually lifted two years later in July 1948.

There seem to me be to be some unanswered questions in this account. For example:

Was the introduction of bread rationing in Britain really necessary to avoid famine in Germany, India and Malaysia? Were supplies of grain to these countries from the US increased as a result?

What was the attitude of the British public?

Why did the Labour Government go ahead with a measure they knew would be unpopular, and which in the end turned out to be “probably unnecessary”?