scrape and scrape and scrape, you will go in old clothes,
and old boots, and old ties until such a mass of treasure be
garnered into the coffers of the Government as to secure
at the end of all this tangle of misery a real and lasting
settlement for Europe."

--The President of the Board of Education.





CHAPTER X

FOOD PRODUCTION AND CONSERVATION


In this great struggle the food question assumes greater and greater
importance.

The production of food has been affected by the raising of great
armies--more than twenty million men are in arms in Europe--by the
feeding of armies, for which we must, of necessity, provide food in
excess of what these men would need in civil life. The ability to
get the food has been made difficult for us by the submarine warfare.
Thousands of tons of wheat lie in Australia, but we cannot afford
ships to bring it. Tea has been very short in England, though again
there are thousands of tons waiting in India. The most urgent need of
the Allies is for ships and more ships. There has been great loss of
tonnage and the needs of the Army and Navy absorb the service of vast