New Britain herald., 1918-07-03
BRITISH FOOD HEAD
 STARVES 10 DEATH
RhoDdda Victim Of Short RatiOnS
 As Example to Public
SAVED ENGLAND IN 1917-18

partment and Carried Country Through Its Darkest Hours. London, July 3.-Niscount Rhond- du David Alfred Thomas) the Brit ish food controller, died this morning. Viscount Rhondda was the man who put England and most of the United Kingdom of Great Britain on rations and won the gratitude even of the people whose food supply he reg ulated. Before he achieved the task it was generally regarded as all but impossible.
 Food was running short in the United Kingdom in June, 1917, when the Baron RhOndda was appOited food controller of Great Britain. The German U-boats were sending ships to the bottom of the ocean and Great Britain was supporting a tremend- ous army in France. The civilians at home were beginning to feel the pinch. Long queues of men, women and children stood for hours at the food stores in scores of British cities and there was a loud grumble from the public.
 Friend of Poor Consumer.
 The man who, as David A. Thomas, had been managing director of the great Cambrian coal combine, appar- ently undertook his task with many misgivings. 'I have a SusplclOn, ne told his Welsh friends, that Lloyd George conscripted me for this al- most impossible job because he knew I had the hide of a rhinoceros. q am going there,' he added, ''as guardian and trustee of the consum- CT and particularly the poor consum- CT" He declared that he was deter mined to stop protitcering and spccu- lation in food.
 If it is necessary to put the whole country on compulsory r2tlonS 1 WILL do it without compunction, he gave warning. Then followed serleS or orders and regulations that year or two before would have reused the Briton to wrath The new food con- trollor took over control of all the crops for 1917 and within d few months announced the formation of an Inter Allied Food Council to pur- chase in the United States food sup plies for Great Britain, France and Italy in cooperation with Herbert Hoover. the American food admlnlS- trator. The purpose was to eliminate competition and stop speculative s1d- Vances in the prices of food. T}v fixing the prices, he put into effect a policy of controlling the prof it's of food dealers from the producer down to the retailer.
 Carries England Through Crisis. Transportation in America was i snowbound for weeks during the win ] ire of 1917 and America failed to de- 1 liver to England the food she had
 promised. Rhondda met the crisis i bv fixing the amount of food to be i served every person in hotels, res i taurants and boarding houses down : to the minute fraction. It carried r England over the crisis and resulted : in his elevation to Viscount. 1 But the new Niscount seemed to ! have fallen a victim to overdevotion . to his own theories. He had boasted 1 that he was living on far smaller ; ration than he had imposed upon the 1 British public but in April 1918 sui
 fered a physical collapse that was at ! tributed to his short ration regimen.
 The queues had disappeared from
 the British food stores. Prices were
 established and, while stories of the 1 sutferings of Germany and Austria | leaked past the CenSors, the Brlton 1 smiled and boasted of what Rhondda 1 had accomplished for him. There
 was food enough and each obtained his share: the coal king had won the
 light and the applause of his country I men.
 Before undertaking that task, l Rhondda had in 1915 organized the
 British munitions buying in the
 United States and Canada and put it on a business basis.
 Born at Adara, Wales, aMrch 26, ] 1856, David A. Thomas was the son ! of a colliery owner. Succeeding to
 his fathers business, he became head of the great Cambrian Combine which ! steam coal used by the British navy. 1 He was elected to Parliament from l Cardiff and twice refused to be made
 a peer. Long before he began to fig
 ure in public life he was widely l known in America as the British Coal l King. His favorite recreation was | in farming. In 1882 he married Sybil
 Haig of Penithon and they had one daughter.
 SOLDIER KILLED BY TRAIN.