Bleak Tidings

Victorious Britons hoped to let out their long-tightened belts. Instead, their new Labor Government ordered them taken in another notch. War-torn Britain was entering the harsh climate of peace.

Even before the cornucopia of Lend-Lease was shut (see NATIONAL AFFAIRS), Britain was in a sorry plight. In one grim week came these additional hammer blows:

P: Board of Trade President Sir Stafford Cripps cut clothing coupons 25% for the next eight months. Shabby, shiny-coated Britons would become even more threadbare, women would go without stockings and woolen underwear for another winter. Reconversion of textile mills from munitions-making would take a while.

P: Minister of Mines Emmanuel Shinwell warned there would be less coal next winter. His mines-nationalization scheme cannot get going until 1946. To conserve fuel he requested a new dimout of street lighting, pondered whether to maintain the victory increase (25%) in gas rationing.

P: Food Minister Sir Ben Smith reduced the meager sugar ration for beer and cake-making. British food ships are speeding to Australia and New Zealand for meat in order to avoid a further cut in the current ration (is. 2d. worth, about 3/4 Ib. of stewing beef a week).

P: Health Minister Aneurin Bevan, faced with the task of providing roofs for homeless thousands next winter, ordered Britons to share homes where shortages are acute. Great numbers of blitzed homes are still open to the sky.

P:Chancellor of the Exchequer Hugh Daiton said that there would be no relief from stiff taxation, no drawing on postwar credits (compulsory savings).

P: The final straw was a chill announcement that the Government intended to reintroduce the irksome Supplies and Services (Transitional Powers) Bill--which controls prices, supplies, labor--for a further five years.

These were bleak tidings for a nation that went on an all-out war economy six years ago.

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