From: Tom Holloway (tom.holloway@u3a.org.uk)
Date: Tue Oct 23 2001 - 13:07:34 PDT
Ron Gillen asked..... > Why was food rationed? Quite simply - because we were flat broke. In fact, bread was OFF-ration during the war and yet started to be rationed in 1946, because wheat we were growing didn't get anywhere near what we needed - and of course, troops were coming home and had to be fed. (Their rations had been better than our civilian rations too, so there was a lot of discontent). The US had been very generous, but even so we had put ourselves greatly in debt in order to finish the war. As George Marshall, former U.S. Secretary of State said in 1947 "Europe's requirements are so much greater than her present ability to pay that she must have substantial additional help or face economic, social, and political deterioration of a very grave character". The answer was 'The Marshall Plan" (see http://www.loc.gov/exhibits/marshall/m9.html) and it, literally, saved our bacon. > What was rationed? Go to http://timewitnesses.org and just click on my old Ration Book. > What caused it to continue post WWII and what caused it to end? Part of the problem was that suddenly taking foods off-ration would have caused severe shortages and this would have led to the rise of a serious "black market", which would have been fine for the rich, but not for the majority. In 1954 we had finally caught up with our food needs and worries about poor people not being to afford a proper diet had disappeared. For more information see http://www.nutrition.org.uk/Facts/rationing/wartime.htm ================ Tom Holloway tom.holloway@u3a.org.uk tom@holloways.org <=== private email http://timewitnesses.org 01926-771772 ------------------------ Yahoo! Groups Sponsor ---------------------~--> FREE COLLEGE MONEY CLICK HERE to search 600,000 scholarships! http://us.click.yahoo.com/Pv4pGD/4m7CAA/ySSFAA/r1FolB/TM ---------------------------------------------------------------------~-> To unsubscribe from this group, send an email to: timewitnesses-unsubscribe@egroups.com Your use of Yahoo! Groups is subject to http://docs.yahoo.com/info/terms/