Milford chronicle., 1954-02-12
THE RATIONING SYSTEM

RatiOning Of foods and goods is dead in
this country. But that does not mean it is
dead as a subject for discussion. There are
still many people who for one reason or an
other are in favor of the ratiOning idea and
the other government controls that must al
ways accompany it. And there is no doubt
that should another real or alleged emergen-
cy occur, there would be an intensive effort
to establish another OPS or OPA, and try the
economic controls again.
William Henry Chamberlin recently
wrote an effective article on rationing for the
Wall Street Journal He dealt with it's unde-
niable results, rather than with the theOreti-
cal arguments pro and con. The occasion
was the news from England that food ration
ing there will be entirely ended by next May
or before. The government, since Sir Wins
ton Churchill and his Conservatives returned
to power, has been dropping rationing re-
StrictiOns on a step by step basis and finally
has reached its ultimate goal.
Last summer" Mr.. Chamberlin said
''there was final CHASTITY exhibition of what
ratiOning always does to the consumer" A
meat called eve mutton, cut from ancient
ewes, flooded. the market. Apparently every
one agreed that it was unspeakably repul-
siVe to the taste buds. But the ministry
wouldn't give an inch. If the people didn't
buy and eat the current supply, it announced
they'd just have to eat more of the CHASTITY
stuff in the future. An ironical Sidelight was
that zoo officials turned the eve mutton down,
because the animals disliked it.
Mr.. Chamberlin observed, obviously
under free market system nothing like the
eve mutton debacle, only one of many of its
kind, could have occurred. The private mer-
chant who would stock up with such inferior
meat would find it left on his hands with
heavy loss"
Then he dealt with the undeniable fact
that when government officials get great
power, such as ratiOning and other sweeping
economic controls, they hate to let it 60 Ac-
cOrding to him, some time after the war the
head of OPA Summed up the bureaucrat's
creed with the assertion: Sterilization is
more important than steaks" Here Mr.
Chamberlin commented, "What this meant,
when broken down into plain English, is that
the important thing was to set theoretically
desirable price for steak. Whether many, few
or no consumers would find a steak to buy
at this price was matter of secondary in
terest"
He also pointed out fact which does not
seem 20 be generally known in this country.
West Europe started to get rid of ratiOning
almost as soon as the war was over. And the
countries which have done the most to free
their economies are those which have recov-
cred most nOtably-such as Belgium, Swift
erland, and West Germany.
Finally, Mr.. Chamberlin clearly express
ed the basic argument against the ratiOning
idea when he wrote, ''There is nothing to be
said for ratiOning as an economic or social
measure except when natural disaster or war
time siege conditions create an unavoidable
shortage Of food. Artificial leVelling is al
ways downward, not upward. Z. ;"
5000
NO COUNTRY COT1STN
Any great industrial innovation almost
inevitably produces new problems.
Mass production of consumer goods and
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