Bread Rationing (Conclusion)

11 February 2006

A New Year and a new term.

I have finished my first two essays on the MA course in Contemporary British History.

One of the essays was on Bread Rationing in the UK after the war. Earlier posts on this blog show how I became interested in the topic, and here is my final contribution to the subject on this blog:

Bread Rationing was introduced in the UK by the Labour Government in July 1946 and remained in force for two years. Bread had never been rationed during the war and at the time was seen as the height of austerity.

The measure was vehemently opposed by the Conservatives, including Churchill, who called it “one of the gravest announcements that I have ever heard made in the House [of Commons] in the time of peace” and the Daily Mail reported on 3rd July 1946, that it was “the most hated measure ever to have been presented to the people of this country." 

However, in practice Bread Rationing turned out to be completely ineffective in reducing the level of consumption in the UK and most historians agree it was “probably unnecessary."

The question I tried to answer was: why did the government not only impose a measure they knew would be unpopular and which in practice proved to be ineffective in achieving its stated purpose, but persist with it for two years in the face of significant opposition at home?

Here is my conclusion in the final paragraph in the essay:

At first sight, the brief two year period of bread rationing may appear as a minor issue; the government simply followed the practice, well proven in wartime, of controlling demand for essential supplies at a time when there was a potential risk of shortages. This is at best a partial explanation. The Attlee government’s decisions on bread rationing were directly affected by four of the gravest and most difficult issues it faced during its first three years in office. Firstly, the ineffectiveness and unpopularity of a policy of direct controls, seen by the public as necessary in war but increasingly superfluous in peacetime. Secondly, virulent opposition from some elements of the public, spurred on by conservative politicians and the press. Thirdly, total dependency on the United States for essential supplies and the means to pay for them. Fourthly and finally, having won the war, having to decide how best to win the peace, at a time of shifting allegiances among the victors and vanquished.

It was a fascinating story. In the course of the research for the essay I learnt about conditions of life in Britain after the war, the desperate economic situation facing both Britain and the rest of Europe, how close much of Europe, including Germany, but not Britain, came to starvation and famine, the international politics of food supplies, the emergence of cold war diplomacy and the division of Europe.

For a taste (!) of what it was like at the time, I looked up British Pathe’s archive of cinema newsreels on the web http://www.britishpathe.com and was amazed at what I found. (Search for “Bread Rationing”). Low resolution downloads for private study are free.

The newsreels include the Minister of Food, John Strachey, justifying the government’s decision, protests by the British Housewives’ League and the Master Bakers’ Federation, plus a film called “Germany’s food – the Truth” which includes pictures of a factory in Germany which converted tons of beech and pine logs into fake liver sausage for human consumption.

Comments

[Truthlord]

I cannot attempt to go into any of the details of Bread Rationing as you and the other lady have covered but briefly you have deliberately or not down played the most important aspect of the matter and which concerns the United States.
As we know America is a nation fanatically opposed to socialism of any kind. It has in recent years destroyed socialist systems in Afghanistan Libya Iraq soon Syria .It also effectively destroyed Yugoslavia.How the USSR was crippled is more complicated However its most evil trick was to attack its greatest enemy which has always been of course Britain.
Having failed to see Britain successfully defeated by the Germans in 1940 America found that at the end of the war its much hated 'ally' (42% of Americans wanted America to pull out of the war in Europe in 1942) had gone socialist and was therefore ripe for attack
One week only after the wars end America unilaterally broke the famous lend lease agreement guaranteeing food and other supplies to the British.
It did this when there were seven million men still in uniform and with Britains factories still geared up for war production .
The result was that Britain was faced with near starvation .Britain was forced to asked for a loan which was only granted under vicious terms (as Keynes stated) These included the end of Imperial Preference --that ended the British Empire instantly and insisting on the pound being fully convertible which crippled British industry for decades
There is more however as one important result of all this was BritaIn being forced to hastily pull out of Palestine thus allowing the Israelis to rush in and claim all of it..
Only by looking at America as the determined and eternal enemy of Britain and the British can one properly see British American relations in a true light
But since your head is probably stuffed full of Americas trash culture I doubt if you see that...

[Chris Knowles]

Truthlord, you exaggerate, to put it mildly.
The British were disappointed that the US ended lend-lease at the end of the war, BUT:

- This did not mean that Britain faced near starvation. Food consumption in Britain continued at much the same levels as before - not as high as the US but higher than the rest of Europe
- Imperial Preference would probably have ended anyway
- The British Empire remained in existence for many years after 1945. India was given independence soon after the war, but most of the African and West Indian colonies not until the 1960s
- A convertible pound did not help British industry, but British industry had only themselves to blame if they were not competitive in world markets
- British industry actually did rather well in the years immediately following the war
- The British did pull out of Palestine, but not until May 1948. The British pulled out of Greece and Turkey a year earlier in end March 1947. The British were over-stretched, but pulling out of Palestine was part of a bigger picture
- The British people in occupied Germany that I have researched had many disagreements with their US colleagues, but they discussed these sensibly and rationally. From 1 Jan 1947 they agreed to merge the British and US Zones economically. This was in the best interests of both.

I'm no fan of MacDonalds, if that's what you mean by 'America's trash culture' but there are many aspects of US culture I admire, just as I admire the culture of many other countries throughout the world.