LONDON LETTER
495
stir here, but less than one would expect because all the big newspapers
have conspired to misrepresent it and the Indian intellectuals in this
country go out of their way to antagonize those likeliest to help them.
The Vansittart controversy rumbles on in books, pamphlets, correspond–
ence columns and the monthly reviews. "Independent" candidates, some
of them plain mountebanks, tour the country, fighting by-elections. Sev–
eral of them have a distinct Fascist tinge. Nevertheless there is no sign
of any Fascist mass movement emerging.
That seems to me the whole of the political news. It has been in
my mind for some time past that you might be interested to hear some–
thing about the minor social changes occurring in this country- what
one might call the mechanical results of war. The price of nearly every–
thing is controlled, and controlled rather low, which leads to black
marketing of luxury foods, but this is perhaps less damaging to morale
than the shameless profiteering that went on last time. The interesting
point is whether the food restrictions are affecting public health and in
what djrection they are altering the national diet. A certain number of
people with small fixed incomes- Old Age Pensioners are the extreme
instance- are now in desperate financial straits, and the allowances paid
to soldiers' wives are wretched enough, but as a whole the purchasing
power of the working class has increased. My own opinion is that on
average people are better nourished than they used to be. Against this is
the increase in tuberculosis, which may have a number of causes but
must be due in some cases to malnutrition. But though it is difficult to
be sure with no standard of comparison, I can't help feeling that people
in London have better complexions than they used, and are more active,
and that one sees less grossly fat people. English working people before
the war, even when very highly paid, lived on the most unwholesome diet
it is possible to imagine, and the rationing necessarily forces them back
to simpler food.
lt
is strange to learn, for instance, that with an adult
milk ration of three pints a week, milk consumption has actually increased
since the war. The most sensational drop has been in the consumption
of sugar and tea. Plenty of people in England before the war ate several
pounds of sugar a week. Two ounces of tea is a miserable ration by
English standards, though alleviated by the fact that small children who
don't drink tea draw their ration. The endlessly stewing teapot was one
of the ba:ses of English life in the era of the dole, and though I miss the
tea myself I have no doubt we are better without it. The wheatmeal
bread is also an improvement, though working people don't as a rule
like it.
War and consequent abandonment of imports tend to reduce use to
the natural diet of these islands, that is, oatmeal, herrings, milk, potatoes,
green vegetables and apples, which is healthy if rather dull. I am not
certain how much of our own food we are now producing, but it would
be of the order of 60 or 70 percent. Six million extra acres have been
ploughed in England since the war, and nine million in Great Britain
