Help from the New World

About the only cheerful news in Sir Kingsley Wood's 140-minute Budget speech concerned the New World. Lend-Lease shipments to the United Kingdom, he told M.P.s, totaled nearly 2% billion dollars up to March 31, now average 400 million a month. Canada's gifts of food and war materials since the beginning of the war have exceeded four billion dollars.

A few days later Washington announced that the Lend-Lease aid to Russia had jumped from 400 million dollars in February to 600 million in March.

Grand total up to March 31: three billion.

No Cheer for Winnie

Britain's new war minister, Sir James Grigg, last week won the parliamentary seat he must hold to remain in the Cabinet, but Winston Churchill could take small comfort from his man's victory. Actively supported by the Prime Minister, indorsed by Conservatives, Liberals and Laborites alike, Sir James polled 10,030 votes. But Independent Laborite Fenner Brockway, who hardly bothered to appear in the campaign, polled 3,311 -- six times many as he had expected. More significant than the vote cast for Candidate Brockway was the fact that 28,000 voters stayed away from the polls.

Another Notch in the Belt

British consumers got more bad news last week when crafty, cherubic Chancellor of the Exchequer "Wee Kingsley" Wood announced the fifth wartime budget, calling for an expenditure of 21 billion dollars. This is 64% of the national income (as against 50 billion or 50% in the U.S.).

Taxes were set at nine billion 600 million, up 600 million over last year.

Every penny of the new taxes will be levied against "luxury" goods, partly because little else remains to be taxed, partly to curb consumption, thus avoiding inflation. The purchase (sales) tax on luxuries was increased from 33% to 66%, and under the heading of luxuries were listed hats, wallets, handkerchiefs, trunks, gloves, watches and many another near-necessity. The tobacco tax was upped 10-c- an ounce, making a package of 20 Players cost 45-c- ; the whiskey tax was raised 90-c- a bottle, bringing the average price up to $4.50.

Income-taxpayers got their first break in years -- a very small break, % but enough to show that these levies had hit their ceiling.

To get more married women into the factories, Sir Kingsley raised their special exemption from $180 to $320 annually.

He also decreed that taxes should not re duce the earnings of a single man below $8 a week, of a childless married man, below $1 2 ; of a married man with two or more children, below $20. Peering over his spectacles at the Labor benches, Tory Sir Kingsley pointed out that 85% of the nation's net purchasing power after income taxes is now in the hands of people with $2,000 or less income per year.

Snapped Lady Astor: "The new rich!" But Sir Kingsley also threw a small sop to industry. The existing 100% Excess Profits Tax, he said, will stick, but hence forth corporations will have a legal claim on the Government for the 20% they had been "promised" after the war -- provided the money is used for business purposes and not for dividends.

"Lick That Platter Clean!"

As more & more United Nations ships go to the bottom, food is becoming the No.1 problem on the British home front. Last week the London Daily Herald burst out with a "Lick That Platter Clean" campaign. "The time has come," said the Herald, "when we must clean our plates with bread and send nothing back to the kitchen. . . . Jam, marmalade and all preserves must be dropped on to the food and never on to the plate."

Actually, Britons have precious little even to lick this spring, but they are not grumbling because they know that Food Minister Lord Woolton is doing about everything possible with the supplies available. Not only is the meat ration down to 25-c- per week per person, but 3-c- of it must be taken in corned beef, thus lessening the possibilities for stews from weekly roasts. Offals (liver, brains, kidneys, etc.) are still unrationed, but most of the supplies have been sent to the canning companies. Rarely now can British families sit down to a dinner of their beloved steak & kidney pie. U.S. canned meats, though moderately plentiful, are unpopular because they require so many coupons.

Meat dishes are scratched from restaurant menus so fast that smart people lunch and dine an hour earlier than usual. To their best customers restaurateurs now say: "Would you mind eating fish today?" Fish is unrationed, but housewives can scarcely buy fish even at Black Market prices. Out of necessity more people are developing a taste for horse meat (see cut).

The egg ration is three a month. Baked spaghetti and macaroni dishes are almost impossible to make, because farinaceous foods are either unobtainable or rationed to near zero. Soho shops still sell ravioli occasionally, but it is filled only with spinach. Most people have forgotten the taste of cheese or wish they could forget it. All sausage is partly packed with bread crumbs. More than a quarter of a pound of sugar might be allotted each person weekly if so much were not being sent to

Russia, whose need is even greater. Restaurants have not served real butter for months, and portions of margarine are half the size of a postage stamp and nearly as thin. Bread is still plentiful, but last week a National Loaf was introduced, consisting of one-quarter white flour and three-quarters whole wheat. Nearly all milk is reserved for children, grownups being allowed only three pints weekly.

Rhubarb is the only "fruit" available in large quantities. About once every three months a ship arrives with a few hundred crates of oranges, but these go straight to the nurseries. Britons flavor their smoked salmon with weak, artificial lemon extract.

The price of vegetables is prohibitive for most people. Lettuce sells at a shilling a head, broccoli at a shilling a pound, mushrooms at five shillings a pound, cauliflower at one shilling sixpence a head. At Cambridge, undergraduates have begun, not very heartily, to eat grass, on recommendation of the School of Agriculture.

Short rations, however, do not mean that Britain is running out of food. Actually stocks are greater now than they were two and a half years ago. But Lord Woolton, a successful department-store tycoon before he became Food Minister, knows that it might be fatal to dig into surpluses now. Said he last fortnight: "We are doing our best to keep you alive until the war is over. You will get thin but we are doing better than the Germans." (Actually most Britons are already thinner -- as much as ten pounds per man.)

Lord Woolton has done much more than see that everybody at the national table gets a helping by making the servings small. Since the war's start nearly 1,500 communal feeding centers for the poor have been opened, 200 in London alone. Some 18,000 pig clubs are producing 3,000 tons of "backyard" bacon a year. Little heavy or bulky food is brought in from abroad. The result of these measures, plus the fact that over 4,000,000 new acres have gone into production, is that Britain is able to get along, although her ships carry 50% less food cargo than in 1939.

Last week Lord Woolton (on orders from the Cabinet) went a step further. Partly to conserve more food but mainly to stop the rich going to restaurants for coupon-free meals after their rations at home are all eaten, he banned the serving of food after n p.m., limited the sale of fish, game and poultry to specified days. There was also talk that Lord Woolton would set a price ceiling of five shillings ($1) for restaurant meals.

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