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Show BRITISH . EjOIOMY Declares the Situation Arising From - the Shortage of Shipping, Depletion of Food Stocks and the German Submarine Menace Is Very Serious. LUXURIES ARE TO BE LOPPED OFF Importations of Other Articles to Be Reduced and Home Production of Foodstuffs Increased by Advancing Wages of Farm Laborers. LONDON, Feb. 23, 2:38 p. m. David Lloyd George, the British prime minister, today presented to the house of commons in a speech lasting an hour and a half his programme for coping with the serious situation arising from shortage of shipping space, deple-i deple-i tion of food stocks and the German submarine menace. The premier advocated the increase of home food production and the curtailment curtail-ment of non-victual imports. To this end he outlined a plan for speeding up the farmer by guaranteeing good prices for commodities over a period of years. This he supplemented by the announcement announce-ment that the land owner would be forced to cultivate his land. More Wages on Farms. The speeding up of the farm laborer was provided for by the premier by guaranteeing a minimum wage of 2j shillings per week instead of the present pres-ent 14 to 18 shillings. By curtailment of imports Mr. Lloyd George said he expected to reduce the demands on cargo space by several million mil-lion tons. Foodstuffs, of which 16,-000,000 16,-000,000 tons were imported last year, will be cut nearly a million tons by lopping off certain luxuries. Paper users who already have been considerably consider-ably curtailed, must henceforth get along with onry half the supply they are now receiving, thus saving 640,000 tons. Certain savings also will be effected ef-fected in the import of ore, which now amounts to 8.000,000 tons annually, and in lumber, which at present is 4,000,000 tons. sDedares Situation Grave. rcmier Lloyd George said that the success of the allied cause depended on the ability to solve the tonnage shortage, short-age, which was now affecting the ordinary ordi-nary needs of the nation and military exigencies. The situation, he declared, called for the gravest measures. The stocks of food in Great Britain 'at the present time are lower than they ever have been before, Mr. tLloyl George said. It was essential for the life of the. nation, he declared, that every possible effort be made tin increase in-crease home production. The premier said there was no sure way to victory without hunting the submarines from the deep. Sacrifices Necessary. Enormous sacrifices were necessary from the British public, said Mr. Lloyd" George. He stated the government proposed pro-posed to dispense with all non-essential importations to save tonnage. There was a crowded house at the special meeting held today to listen to the premier's statement on restriction of imports and the encouragement of agriculture. Among those in the diplomatic diplo-matic gal lory were Premier Borden of ('anaibi. Premier Massey of New Zealand Zea-land and in any represent ati e.s of allied al-lied nations aud the dominions. Importations Prohibited. The premier said the ultimate success of the allied cause depended on the solution so-lution of the tonnage difficulties with which they were confronted. Before I the war British tonnage had been .iust adequate and since that time there had been an enormous increase in the de-maud de-maud for tonnage. More than one million mil-lion tons of British shipping had been r,l)ot d o Ftar ce alon d i very ctisiderab)e amount had been set aside JmuT "Russia and Ttaly. In addition a considerable amount had been sunk. The importation of armies, tomatoes f and fruits will be prohibited entirely. (Continued on Page Three.) . BflfTISH PREMIER ' TP FORGE EGONDMYj (Continued from Faffa One.) The only exceptions made in the prohibition pro-hibition of .fruit importations will be j in the cases of oranges and bananas, in j which the amount brought in will be restricted 25 per oeot. The same restriction re-striction will apply to nuts. Canned salmon importations will be reduced 50 per cent. The importation of foreign tea, coffee and cocoa is prohibited and even the amount of India tea which may he brought in is reduced. The premier said it. was expected to save PoO.OOO tons of shipping yearly ou foodstuffs. Lloyd George said that for some time there has been a shortage of tonnage required for the general needs of the, nation and even a slight shortage in the tonnage for military purposes. The nation should realize absolutely what the conditions are. Disaster Impends. ' ' If we take drastic measures, ' ' he continued, "we can cope with the sub-j marine menace, but if the nation ia I not prepared to accept drastic measures for dealing with the menace, disaster is before us. "The government is hopeful of find-1 ing means of dealing with the submarine, subma-rine, but we should be guilty of folly if we rested tranquilly upon the expectation ex-pectation of the realization of that hope. We have to deal ruthlessly and I promptly with the tonnage problem by, 'measures which impose great sacrifices upon the country. "There are three sets of measures: First, by the navy, as described by Sir Edward Carson (first lord of the admiralty); ad-miralty); second, the building of merchant mer-chant ships: third, dispensing with unnecessary un-necessary commodities from abroad and production of as much food as possible at home." The premier announced that the government gov-ernment would guarantee' a price of! 3?s 6d for oats this year, 32s for the next two years and 24s for the three following follow-ing years. The price of potatoes would be guaranteed for the coming season only at 8 a ton. I High Prices After War. The opinion was expressed by the premier that food prices were not likely to decrease for a long time after the war, inasmuch as Germany would then be a heavier purchaser than ever before. Therefore it was safe to grant to the farmers a minimum price over a definite period of time, which was the only way to bring about immediate action. The premier also proposed a minimum wage of 25s weekly for agricultural workers. For wheat, the government will guarantee guar-antee the farmer the following minimum prices per quarter: For the present yeac, 1 60s; for 191 S and 1019, 55s; for 1?20, and fs. Brewing will be cut down to ten million mil-lion barrels annually. A similar reduction reduc-tion will bo made in the output of spirits, effecting a saving of 600,000 tons of foodstuffs. food-stuffs. The import at Ion of aerated, mineral and table waters will be prohibited. Powers Pow-ers will be given to the board of agriculture agri-culture to cdinpel land owners to cultivate their ground. The minimum wage for farm labor announced an-nounced fhy Mr. l.loyd George, LT.s a week, represents an Increase of iiO to R0 per cent over the present prevailing payment.- The Importation of paper, the premier announced, must be curtailed by a further fur-ther 640,000 tons annually. Reduction Necessary. As essentials, the premier enumerated : food, clothing, maintenance and equipment equip-ment of the civil and military population 1 at home and abroad and raw material I for munitions, for war equipment and for industries which are essential to the national na-tional life. "These are essential," declared the premier. "Anything beond is a non- essential and unnecessary arth-le which the nation can dispense with. If we can- ; no!, then we ought not to wage war and 1 ask sacrifices nf those tine fellows who represent us abioad. It Is Idle to suggest 1 that while millions of our best citizens are facing the conflict abroad for a great : ca use tha t we, who a re com fort a hi1 at home, -should not be prepared to surren- , dcr things which are not a necessary part ! of our existence." ! After referring to the government committees com-mittees who gambled these quest Ions, the premier turned to the question of paper, pa-per, and said: "I had no idea that such quantities of pappi were utilized for newspapers and wrappings. They both consume- an enormous enor-mous tonnage. I cannot say whether I ought to treat newspapers as a luxury, a cnmfnrt, a stimulus, a necessity, or a nuisance in life. They have ben an ejiormous help to us in', the effective waging of the war. There is no better proof of this tha n the brilliant success achieved by the chancellor of the exchequer ex-chequer in bis recent war loan speech. Must Make Choice. "Still, when we have a change to choose between them and very stern necessity. ne-cessity. 1 a.m afraid we shall have to deprive de-prive ourselves of a certain number of t heir pagps and substantially to reduce the Imports of paper and material. We propose to halve the present supply of 1.200.000 tons and reduce the annual imports im-ports to 64, 000 tons, the reduction to be distributed equally between the printing print-ing and packing trades. We recognize , that It Is a serious hardship, but feel that j it is Imperative." The importation of printed posters, pa- I per hangings and certain kinds of foreign printed matter. books and periodicals. Premier t.lovd George added, would have to be prohibited. Otherwise it would be unfair to the trade in Great Britain. Also, he said, there would have to be restrictions in the use of paper for posters, pos-ters, for catalogues and for government departments. Foodstuff Reduction. "Now I come to the reduction in food and feeding stuffs." Mr. I,Ioyd George said. "First, fruit and vegetables are essential es-sential articles of diet and will come on the free list, but there are certain articles, ar-ticles, largely imported, which are not essential to the national life, although they are very desirable, and which we think it necessary to diminish or prohibit altogether. "Apples, tomatoes and certain raw fruits, we have reluctantly come to the conclusion we shall have to prohibit altogether al-together and depend on European eup-plips. eup-plips. Oranges. bananas. grapes. almonds al-monds and nuts are restricted to 2- per cent of the 191 imports. Imported aerated mineral and table waters are prohibited pro-hibited and canned salmon is reduced to ;.0 per cent. As to tea. we shall have to prohibit foreign tas altogether. They fome from considerable distances, and. to a certain extent, even Indian teas will have' to be reduced." , Then, stating that there were large stocks of coffee and cocoa in the country, coun-try, Mr. Tloyd George said the government govern-ment must, for the time being, prohibit both these articles. Much Meat on Hand. "For meat and feeding stuffs," the premier pre-mier continued, "we must, to a large ex-lent, ex-lent, depend on home-grown supplies. We have, fortunately, larger stocks of meat than ever before. Taking all these categories together, with our food and feeding stuffs, we hope to be able to save over 900.0AO tons of cargo space per annum, an-num, which shows the extent to which we have had to rely on foreign countries for commodities of that kind. "These are manufactured articles of luxury. They run into very much bigger figures than the bouse realizes. I did not realize it until I studied the question. ques-tion. We shall have to stop a considerable consid-erable number of these articles. I regret i it deeply in some cases, because a good i many of them emanate from France. Undoubtedly it will be a blow to certain French Industries, but, unfortunately, we are driven to It for the sake of saving tonnage, not merely for ourselves, but for France and Italy also, and I am sure if they bad to choose between the two they would infinitely prefer having ships for other purposes. 1 "Now I come to the very serious restriction re-striction upon our imported luxuries. I am referring to those connected with alcoholic al-coholic liquors. Our food stocks, as I have already said, are lower than they I j ever have been before. Under these clr-; cumstances, we cannot justify the importation im-portation of ' such large quantities of foods tuffs, except for feeding the people. I say at once that we are not approaching approach-ing tins from the viewpoint of temperance temper-ance or increased sobriety, however desirable, de-sirable, though, they might be, but purely pure-ly as a method of competing with the submarine menace and or' guaranteeing the nation against the possibility of famine fam-ine and privations. Blow at Brewers. "In 1?H there were .16.000,000 standard barrels of beer brewed in this country. In 1916 that was reduced to 2S,Ch'm)(000 barrels, partly owing to the fact that two or three millions of the adult population popu-lation had left these shores. Early this year the food controller proposed a further fur-ther reduction to 18,000,000 barrels." Paying tribute to the patriotic spirit with which the trade faced restrictions that reduced their profits, the premier continued : "It Is a powerful trade. Nobody knows better than my old colleagues and myself what it can accomplish if its interests in-terests are menaced. But it accepted all this interference In a most laudable spirit of determination to do all in its power to contribute to the safety of the nation. But we must go beyond that. It Is absolutely ab-solutely impossible to guarantee the food of the country without making a much deeper cut in the barrelage and we must reduce ft to ten million barrels. That means that we shall save 600.000 pounds of foodstuffs per annum, which Is nearly one month's supply of the cereals enter-inn enter-inn the country. That is a direct savtnK. but the indirect saving Is a ffreat deal more and this is one of the most Important Impor-tant contributions that can be made at the present moment toward ending the war. But we must puard against the danger in dolns this of driving the population popu-lation from beer to spirits. That would be a serious disaster. "Therefore, there must be a corresponding corre-sponding restriction upon placing spirits on the market. There are a few other restrictions on leather, rr.v hides, etc., which will be found in it he proclamation find which conclude the main restrictions the government proposes to impose immediately." im-mediately." Question of Production. These restrictions would be imposed Immediately, Im-mediately, said the premier. Steps would be taken to prevent speculative buying, and, if necessary, the food controller would take control of the commodity. The restrictions had been carefully considered and be asked the house to take them as a whole. The premier declared he had not the slightest doubt that if the whole programme pro-gramme were carried out, and if all those who could help in production did help, "I honestly say we can face the worst the enemy can do, and that is what we ought to be prepared to do." In dealing with the question of production, produc-tion, the premier said: "Then there is the question of our home supplies of food. I want the country coun-try to know that at present our food stocks are low. This is not due to submarines, sub-marines, but to the bad harvest. It is essential to the safety of the nation that we put forth every effort to Increase production pro-duction this year. There are still a few weeks to sow spring wheat, oats and barley. bar-ley. To induce the farmer to plow up pasture pas-ture laqd Immediately, the government proposes to guarantee the farmer a minimum mini-mum price for a definite period, while a minimum wage of 25s weekly will be fixed for the labofffcr." Premier's Peroration. In his peroration the premier said: "I know of no body of honorable men who would take for one hour the responsibility re-sponsibility for the conduct of this terrible terri-ble war unless the nation was prepared to take its share of the sacrifices. I say it would be a crime It would be black crime for any government to ask the gallant men at the front to risk their brave lives in the coming conflict if they knew the effort of the nation was fainthearted, faint-hearted, was selfish and that their sacrifices sacri-fices were thrown away. "We have no right to ask It. For that reason I have come here, after long deliberation de-liberation and thought and on behalf of the government, to submit proposals which 1 hope the commons will approve and the nation will carry out with unflinching un-flinching and ungrudging hearts." Dealing with shipbuilding, Mr. Lloyd George said he had made a special appeal ap-peal to labor and that he was convinced the output could be very considerably increased in-creased by an alteration in methods. 'Wherever payments by results have been introduced," said the premier, "there has been an increase In the output of shipbuilding yards, sometimes by twenty, sometimes by thirty and sometimes even by forty per cent. We have made a special spe-cial appeal to the great trade unions to assent to the introduction of these methods. meth-ods. In home yards, they have already been introduced. This also Involves the undertaking by employers that If larger wages are earned by the men as a result re-sult of special efforts no advantage must be taken of that to reduce rates. The penalizing of good work by reducing the rate of payment has been one of the great follies of the past that has caused the workingmen to fear piece rates. Must Build Ships. "It is essential that we should get 'as much work as possible out of the ship yards not merely for shipbuilding for the mercantile marine, but for the building of craft for coping with submarines. Our shipbuilding capacity is the greatest in the world and is fairly adequate for the gigantic task which is thrown upon it The Italian, French and Russian contribution contri-bution v a very substantial one. but in the main the burden is on the shoulders of Great Britain, and if workmen and employers of all classes in the community strive their utmost. I think Great Britain can bear that burden successfully right to the end."' Timber to the amount of 6. 400.000 tons had been imported, he said, and If this tonnage was to be saved this timber problem prob-lem must be dealt with. Investigation was being made as to the best method of economizing timber behind the lines and in England. Another method was to make the army in France self-supporting. The French government, said the premier, pre-mier, alraady had placed two forests at the disposal of Great Britain and he was afraid the government must ask the French to make further sacrifices. third method was to get sufficient labor to Increase the supply of home timber for pit props and other purposes. The next heaviest Item of import is iron ore. Regarding this item, the premier pre-mier said: "We are Importing millions of tons, but the Importation cannot be diminished unless more iron ore is found tn our country. coun-try. There lb plenty of low-grade ore. however, tn this country and if the supply sup-ply of labor can he augmented we can increase enormously our output. The saving sav-ing of tonnage w onld he large, but unfortunately un-fortunately it would -come Inte in dhc , vcar." "Farmer" r-an "1'"'rGase even now by hundreds of t hounds of to,,, fo,-h!s(' food supplies of the country. If all the plans are carried out a very considerable quantitv of tonnage will be saved, but future "tonnage Is urgently needed. The French ambassador has been here begging beg-ging for more ships and the Italian ambassador am-bassador has just left after making the same request. We need an immediate and substantial saving of tonnage. Let us come down ruthlessly on Imports which are not essential. It is Idle to suggest sug-gest rhat we who are comfortable at home should not be prepared to surrender the things unnecessary-" The premier also announced that the importation of books, periodicals and other printed matter would be prohibited entirelv. Opening the debate in the house of commons todav on the statement of Premier Pre-mier David Lloyd George. Walter Runci-man. Runci-man. formed v president of the board of trade, after referring to the gravity of the pronouncement, said that the last government had adopted drastic measures of a prohibitory nature In many directions, direc-tions, but that the country had borne them with fortitude. Difficult negotiations negotia-tions with the entente allies had had to be conducted by the government on this subject, he commented, adding: "Our hardships here are mighty ones, as great as those of Italy; but as a matter mat-ter of fact there Is a difference of temperament. We, in this country, do not make the same fuss about restrictions re-strictions as did the Italians. In this country men are ashamed to give expression ex-pression to their feelings, even if the restrictions re-strictions are felt to be hard." Mr. Runciman said he thought the government gov-ernment should endeavor to reduce the amount of tonnage used for government purposes, which at present is 63 per cent. If it could be reduced to 50 per cent of the total tonnage, he said, supplies would be permitted to enter freely to that extent. ex-tent. If not, the merflbers of the house, he declared, had not heard the last of the shipping tale. Walter Hume Long, secretary of state for the colonies, in reply, paid a tribute to the dominions and colonies for the manner In which they had received the restrictions upon imports which to them might be very important. The premier, he said, desired him to say that the Importation of rum was stopped altogether, alto-gether, there now being a sufficient stock for the needs of the army, while there would be a i eduction In the importation of wines and spirits of 75 per cent on the basis of 1913. |
