Our Food Prices and Germanys

This report in the Kildare Observer on 23rd January 1915, looked at the delicate item of food prices in the UK and Germany.

Families were feeling the effect of very high inflation and one source of encouragement was that the German’s were having an even worse time of it.

"OUR FOOD PRICES AND GERMANY’S

At the beginning of the war - during the first month or so - we heard a lot more about the prospective increase in the prices of foodstuffs than we do at present, the explanation being, doubtless, the circulation of disquieting rumours or estimates from unofficial or unreliable sources as to the possibility of our maintaining ourselves of these countries without the assistance of our enemies - Germany and Austria - and as a result of the partial destruction of the industry of France and Russia, and the almost complete annihilation of industry in Belgium.
But one thing soon became obvious to the scaremonger wise-acres- they, like most of use, had completely under-estimated the resources of the British Empire. It is now evident that while our Navy is paramount on seas we need never fear the necessity of England capitulating through lack of foodstuffs - we can never be starved out. Starving out, it is well to remember, is a quite legitimate and an extremely effective weapon in warfare. A county must depend almost entirely on its food supply in terms of war, not alone food for its people, but also for its livestock, and what is scarcely of lesser importance pabulum in the way of munitions of war; in fact, supplies of all kinds - of food, of clothing, of gold, of silver, of copper, about which we heard so much arising out of the American Note and England’s reply thereto, and even of paper

Realising this we are the better enabled to recognise and to acknowledge the debt we owe, each and every one amongst us, to our gallant sons who to make up one of our most essential and glorious Imperial assets, the British Navy. "That’s the secret of our power", and when we feel disposed to ask, with the sang froid and ignorance of men who don’t know what they are talking about, how it was the Germans were able to steal upon bombard the Yorkshire coast and clear off themselves unscathed; when we feel that there was something lacking to our side, or when some of us feel disposed - a very few, indeed - to regard the British Navy as having failed in its work in this respect the unreasonableness of our position and the injustice of our complaint is brought home to us on remembering what we owe those whose efforts we may feel inclined to belittle, for the food we eat, or, at all events, for the fact that our food is more plentiful and costs us less than theirs is costing the Germans at the moment. At the moment he would be a foolish man who would argue that there is not a necessity to conserve our supplies, and to prepare for eventualities, for practical certainties, in the near future in the way of scarcity of food and of, consequently, dearer prices. On the contrary, we say unhesitatingly that the farmer who increases his tillage appreciably is not alone showing a high degree of wisdom, as far as his personal property is concerned, but is also doing a single service to the State. In the British Board of Trade "Labour Gazette" there is an interesting and instructive survey of retail food prices which shows that in the United Kingdom there is at the present moment an increase of 19 per cent in large towns and a 17 per cent in small towns on the prices charged in July last. Sugar, meat, flour and tea have all increased in price, and in many towns, such as Naas, for example, we know that the increase does not cease at the line of demarcation between necessity and a desire for higher profits, as is evidenced by the additional price of meat for one thing.

At the beginning of January the survey referred to shows that the price of granulated sugar in the United Kingdom was about two-thirds higher than before the war. Flour has gone up from 18 to 23 per cent, the increase in Germany being 33.3 per cent; butter from 12 to 16 per cent, as compared with 17.3 in Germany", bread from 14 to 18 per cent as against 27.7 in Germany. Mutton shows increases according to the different classes, varying from 5 to 28 per cent, while in Germany it shows a decrease of 4.4 per cent; potatoes have increased in the United Kingdom by from 11 to 22 per cent, while Germany there has been an increase of 12.5 per cent. It is not easy to assign a reason for the fact that while in Germany almost everything shows a tremendous increase in price since the war, mutton is cheaper there than before, and dearer in the United Kingdom. The explanation may be traceable to increased taxation on foodstuffs, a distinction being drawn perhaps in the matter of live stock. We do not know. It will be remembered that the British Government bought up all the stocks available at the beginning of the war, and while this may have prevented an undue inflation in price at the time, the position has not been much benefited since, taking into consideration the fact that sugar has advanced from 66 to 69 per cent.

Our food is undoubtedly costing us more than it did before the war, but we may console ourselves with the reflection that things are not as bad as they might be, and certainly not as bad as they are in Germany. It is too soon yet to hazard the hope that we have reached the high water mark. Despite every precaution, that must largely depend on the duration of the war, and the duration of the war is equally dependent on the vigilance of the Navy and of the Government in straining every nerve to prevent a maintenance of the German nation by neutral countries which are not above, "making their bit" by smuggling food and other necessaries into our enemies’ countries.