@drmaryfraser
Lord Rhondda’s appointment as Food
Controller from June 1917 saw a more equal supply and distribution of food
across Britain, so that social class and income did not determine what food people
could buy and eat. The huge government programme to control what everyone bought
and ate involved the police in enforcing measures to control the food supply. National
food control involved huge numbers of staff mainly employed locally to identify
households, individuals and retailers of items in short supply, such as sugar,
tea, butter, margarine and meat. Individuals had to register with one retailer
for each of these items and produce a token to buy them. This regulated these
scarce items. There were many infringements of the regulations by individuals
and retailers and the police acted to prosecute the culprits, usually by fines
but occasionally by imprisonment. Their crimes were made public through the
press.
The turning point for food policy was
not reached until mid-1917; before this, people were asked to restrict the
amount they ate, as the poster below shows.
The Defence of the Realm Act,
Regulation 2F passed in early 1917 gave the Food Controller wide ranging powers
to regulate “the production, manufacture, treatment, use, consumption,
transport, storage, distribution, sale or purchase of, or other dealing … for
the purpose of encouraging or maintaining the food supply of the country”. The
police were told through their journal The
Police Review and Parade Gossip that contravention was a summary offence,
but it advised its readers that policemen did not have the power of entry to
premises for inspection without special authority from the Food Controller.
However, although they should not enter premises, reports in the press showed
that prosecutions had been brought where bread was thrown away which was found
in dustbins, relying on surveillance by neighbours on each other so that they
could tip off the police to inquire further into the matter. More general waste
of food could also result in a conviction; W.H. Beveridge (1928) gives an
example:
“A Lincolnshire farmer finding himself
able to buy seven stone of rock cakes cheaply from an Army canteen used them to
feed pigs; as the food executive officer and a police sergeant were able to
pick some of the cakes out of a swill-tub and taste them without bad
consequences, the farmer was fined £10 for wasting human food.”
The police were advised that they
could only take action in “such cases as come to their notice while in the
exercise of their regular duties”.
But these measures failed to gain
public support, particularly in less affluent areas and led to labour agitation
and threats of unrest. When industrial unrest was investigated, it was found
that food supply was at the heart of the discontent. The government was pressed
by many individuals and organisations, including trade unions, to control the
food supply, so that everyone had access to an equal share. In August 1917 the
Food Controller set up a regional administrative structure by dividing Britain
into seventeen units: eleven in England; three in Scotland; two in Wales and
one in Ireland - each with its own Divisional Food Commissioner, administrative
and legal staff. To help the Divisional Commissioners to administer and enforce
the hundreds of food orders were approximately 1,900 local food control
committees each with 12 members who represented the local community; they should
include at least one labour representative and one woman. Later, particularly
in large cities, the numbers of trade union and women members increased. One of
the local committees’ main functions was to license all retailers, who sold
rationed items, with the local authority and all wholesalers with the central
office. Each local scheme must be registered centrally with the Food Controller
who also controlled the maximum amount of each scarce item that could be sold. This
allowed the Food Controller to compare local schemes across Britain.
Every customer should be registered
with one retailer who should divide his supplies equally between his customers
while not registering more customers than he could serve. Penalties of fines,
removal of a trader’s license and/or in a few cases imprisonment could follow
if the orders were not observed. By mid-1918 this vast bureaucratic structure
of central government, regional and local food control involved enforcement,
inspection and prosecution at each level, which Lord Rhondda recognised was
costly, but essential if food control was to be effective. Each level monitored
the performance of the level(s) below and could enforce the regulations if they
failed to do so. This brought a further role for the police.
Fixing food prices by central
government control began in September 1917, with many items controlled at
wholesale and retail levels. But there were many contraventions followed by
convictions, seen in the ten most active months of February to November 1918,
on average 100 people were prosecuted with 92% successful convictions, this dropped
to an average of 70 per day following the end of the war. The National Food Journal summarised the
number of prosecutions and successful convictions under the Food Control Orders
for 1918:
England 24,296 prosecutions 22,380 convicted 92.1%
Scotland 1,909 prosecutions 1,830 convicted 95.8%
Wale 2,452 prosecutions 2,153 convicted 87.8%
Ireland 13,870 prosecutions 12,379 convicted 89.2%
Total
GB 28,657 prosecutions 26,363 convicted 92.0%
Fines were often imposed; the average
was £4 7s. 2d. which was not trivial, they were often said to be for selling
above the fixed maximum price. Imprisonment without a fine was also an option,
although not commonly used, but the publicity given by this and the fines was
said to provide a deterrent.
“The members of the department will be
required to make themselves thoroughly conversant with the many and complex
orders issued by the Food Controller and the regulations made by the local Food
Committee. But a feature of the arrangement is that the new branch is intended
not so much to obtain convictions as to prevent contraventions of the orders,
and by explaining both to the public and the dealers the terms and meanings of
the orders to ensure the smooth and effective working of food control.”
This showed the police as having a
social conscience to help, rather than only to convict, with the hope that this
would bring them closer to retailers and the public to improve surveillance.
The new branch also furthered links between the police and local authorities in
the new area of food regulation. The Chief Constable said he hoped the mere
existence of this new branch would make for more careful study and observance
of the regulations. Other writers to the journal said that special officers had
also been appointed for this purpose in a great many police forces around
Britain. This shows policemen as central to encouraging adherence, particularly
by retailers and the public, to food policies.
Food control saw the government managing
the distribution and supply of scarce foodstuffs which was said, from 1917
onwards, to be central to winning the war. But at a cost - by the war’s end 8,800
staff were employed by the Ministry of Food in headquarters and in the local
offices. Food control was another new role for the police on the Home Front.
References
Beveridge W. H. (1928) British Food Control London: Humphrey
Milford; Oxford University Press.
Fraser, M. (2019) Policing
the Home Front 1914-1918: The control of the British population at war.
Routledge, Research Monograph.
@drmaryfraser
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