Statesmen v. Housewives

Over the transatlantic telephone Churchill and Roosevelt, like a couple of worried matrons, talked about food. A British major general with a distinguished record for bravery in Italy faced, with obvious trepidation, his new assignment to handle The Netherlands' "potentially perfectly awful" relief problems. Workers in France's nationalized Renault works hijacked a convoy of meat-laden trucks which had been seized by the Food Ministry. French railwaymen blocked gendarmes "who tried to take away ten cattle, threatened to tie up the big Villeneuve-St.-Georges freight yards with a strike. Paris entered its fourth meatless week. Alarmed by reports from the hungry Continent, two British Cabinet Ministers emplaned for Washington, where a seething row over food split the Administration.

Statesmen last week looked over the world's food prospects for 1945-46, realized that most relief food for Europe could come only out of the U.S. civilian supply, and concluded in all seriousness that the fate of democracy in Western Europe depended on U.S. housewives.

Would the U.S. public take further cuts, in addition to recent ones caused by huge military purchases? If so, the U.S. and Britain had a chance to win a prime peace aim--stable, democratic, friendly Governments on the near side of Europe. If not, a European food crisis might produce political chaos and totalitarianism.

Empty bellies sharpen memories. In 1942 official propaganda promised that the U.S. would put aside part of each year's crop to meet Europe's relief needs, pledged enough U.S. food stocks to "win the war and write the peace."

Now the pledge was due, and some 70,000,000 underfed Western Europeans knew it. But there were no such stocks, nor other regions to which Europe could turn for food. Japs still held most of Asia's food exporting areas. Drought held South America, South Africa, Australia (TIME, March 26). The U.S. and Canada, after alltime peaks of food production last year, expected a slight drop this year.

In all the world, only North Americans had a general diet level well above nutritional needs.* In all the world, only North Americans ate more food in wartime than before the war. This last was such an uncomfortably conspicuous fact in world politics that 1) Canada talked of resuming meat rationing although Canadians knew it would not reduce consumption significantly, and 2) one group of U.S. Administration leaders wanted a drastically reduced civilian food supply, although they knew it would raise howls from U.S. consumers who have looked to V-E day for relaxed rationing, not further cuts.

The Causes. Why had liberation and victory brought a crisis in food which the Germans had managed to stave off? There were many reasons. The Germans had managed European agriculture as a whole, introduced some improved methods, distributed food with a harsh, discriminatory--but efficient--hand. Even so, by D-day European food production was already running down for lack of phosphates, tractors, fuel, transport, manpower. After D-day disorganization mounted, European transport disintegrated, the German armies took horses to save fuel, and greatly reduced the working power of European farmers.

The war did not end as soon as the Allied planners expected. Sowing time this year finds armies fighting over some of the most important food-producing areas. Hundreds of thousands of farmers have been uprooted, unable to get home. Thousands of those who remain have no seed or tools. According to Washington's calculations, Europe will be lucky if it produces 105 million tons of food in 1945.

That would be only 10% below 1944, and Europe as a whole normally has to import only about 10% of the food it eats. Without any imports, Europe would have 80% of its normal supply. On the face of it, this was not catastrophe or even crisis. But, unhappily for the U.S. and the world, this was not the whole story. The danger lay a good deal deeper. Europe in 1945 was not likely to be "a whole."

In good times, the countries east of Germany produce more food than they eat. Germany and the countries west of it produce less than they eat (France, 83%; The Netherlands, 67%; Belgium, 51%; Norway, 43%). Damaged transport would hinder westward movement of food across Europe. Eastern food-surplus countries lie in the Russian sphere of military occupation or political influence. Millions of hungry Russians, on short rations since the summer of 1941, are likely to get any surplus from the Danube Basin and nearby areas.

Thus the European food shortage will be largely concentrated in Western Europe, and even there it cannot be spread evenly over the whole population. When food is short, only the strongest governments can make rural areas disgorge food for the cities. Inflation makes the task almost impossible. Strong governments and stable money are not good 1945 bets in Western Europe. Lack of adequate transport between farm and town has already driven food standards of European city-dwellers far below rural levels. In almost every liberated area, black markets abound, further concentrating the full effect of shortages on the poorer city-dwellers who cannot afford to buy what food there is.

In London and Washington, all this added up to potential revolution. That was why Britain's Minister of Production, the Rt. Hon. Oliver Lyttelton, and Food Minister Colonel John Jestyn Llewellin hurried to Washington. Lyttelton and Llewellin did not come to oppose last week's whacking cut in U.S. Lend-Lease meat to Britain. Britons were grumbling, but the British Cabinet, as sensitive to high international policy as to domestic politics, was more alarmed about what might happen across the Channel.

That, too, was why U.S. officials in France sent urgent warnings; why Churchill in Commons denied hotly that Britain was hoarding food at the expense of liberated Europe; why Judge Samuel Rosenman, speaking for the President, swung through the liberated capitals trying to persuade them that even Germany would have to be fed to prevent chaos and release U.S. soldiers for home or the Pacific. And that was why the decision on U.S. food exports was too big for Assistant President James F. Byrnes. The question could be settled only by the President--or Congress.

How Much? The U.S. now sends to Europe (mostly to Britain) 14 million tons of food a year. How much more would Europe need? In all, 50 million tons, or about half the present U.S. civilian supply, was the experts' staggering answer. But nobody took this figure seriously. Even if Washington politicos were brave enough to face such a cut, ships would not be available to carry so much.

More practical estimates called for 18 million tons, most of it in addition to the 14 million now moving. How much would actually be sent depended on the relative influence of three groups (TIME, March 26):

1) The Peacemakers (Secretary of State Stettinius, Harry Hopkins, the British) believed that civilians could and willingly would pull in their belts if they were convinced that the future of democracy in Western Europe depended on it. These officials had made up their minds, and the official U.S. policy was to send more food. But that could not be done unless the other groups consented or gave in to a direct Presidential order.

2) The Warmakers (Army, Navy, WPB) argued hotly that any constriction in military shipping or food supplies might delay victory. So far, they have balked all political decisions to send more food to Europe.

3) The Home-Fronters (War Food's Marvin Jones, Jimmy Byrnes, et al.) thought that any cut in soldier food or further heavy cuts in civilian supplies would be politically impossible and might hurt the war effort by cracking civilian morale.

Since distribution difficulties within Europe were a big factor, the U.S. might lessen the demand for food by shipping locomotives and trucks. A few ships carrying North African phosphates across the Mediterranean would produce food which otherwise would have to be sent across the Atlantic. Feed for European livestock would greatly help Europe to provision its own table. But even with perfect planning (plus good weather), the U.S. probably would have to eat less to win the peace.

* The U.S. soldier eats nearly 4,000 calories (double the 2,000 held necessary for health), including five times as much meat as the twelve ounces a week allowed British civilians. U.S. civilians, who before the war averaged a little over 3,100, now eat about 3,300 calories of the best-balanced diet in the world. Canadians are eating about 3,200 calories a day. French city-dwellers get about 1,300. The British are now up to about 2,900, but their diet is badly balanced and lacks variation. The Germans have had slightly less (but better balanced); the Russians, about 2,000.

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