* * * * *
[Illustration: _Navvy._ "WHY DON'T YER WEAR THEM BOARDS THE RIGHT WAY
ROUND?"
_Sandwichman._ "WOT! IN ME DINNER-HOUR? NOT ME!"]
* * * * *
"Some five or six million years hence, therefore, it is
prophesied, the earth will fall into the grip of an ice age. There
will descend on all living things the blight of eternal cod."
_Scotch Paper._
Although the danger is not immediate it deserves the serious
consideration of the FOOD CONTROLLER.
* * * * *
=SQUISH.=
_(Being some notes on a bye-path in politics.)_
The Board of Agriculture has been biding its time. In the fierce light
of publicity which has been beating of late upon Mr. LLOYD GEORGE,
Mr. WINSTON CHURCHILL and Sir ERIC GEDDES the attempt of this rustic
Ministry to assert itself has passed almost unnoticed. Our gaze has
been fixed upon the London railway termini, upon Warsaw and upon
Belfast; we have been neglecting Campden (Glos.). Yet in that town, I
read, "the Ministry of Agriculture has completed arrangements for a
commercial course in the State Fruit and Vegetable College to instruct
students in the manufacture of preserved fruit products."
I have considered the last part of the sentence quoted above very
carefully in the light of the Rules and Regulations governing
procedure in State Departments, Magna Carta, the Habeas Corpus Act and
the Constitutions of Clarendon, and have come to the conclusion that
it means "making jam." I am very sure, as the PRIME MINISTER would
say, that things are about to happen in preserved fruit products;
things will become very much worse and very much sterner in jam. And
if in jam why then also in jelly and in marmalade. Even at this moment
in the offices of the Board of Agriculture there are a number of
clerks, I suppose, sitting with schedules in front of them, something
like this:--
+------------+----------+----------+----------+----------+----------+-----+
| |No. of |No. of |No. of |No. of |No. of | |
| |candidates|candidates|candidates|candidates|candidates| |
| |in |awaiting |fully |trained |full, but |Total|
| |training |training |trained |but not |not | |
| |in |in | |full |trained | |
+------------+----------+----------+----------+----------+----------+-----+
| | | | | | | |
|1. Jam | | | | | | |
| | | | | | | |
+------------+----------+----------+----------+----------+----------+-----+
| | | | | | | |
|2. Jelly | | | | | | |
| | | | | | | |
+------------+----------+----------+----------+----------+----------+-----+
| | | | | | | |
|3. Marmalade| | | | | | |
| | | | | | | |
+------------+----------+----------+----------+----------+----------+-----+
| | | | | | | |
| Total | | | | | | |
| | | | | | | |
+------------+----------+----------+----------+----------+----------+-----+
The perfect beauty of schedules framed upon this model is only to be
apprehended by those who realise that when they are filled in and
added up correctly the figure at the base of the vertical "Total"
column on the right is identical with the figure on the right of the
horizontal "Total" column at the base. It is the haunting magic of
this fact that gives to Government clerks the wistful far-away look
which they habitually wear.
It is not a good schedule this, of course--not a complete, not an
exhaustive one. After a month or so it will be discovered with a
cry of astonishment that no record has been kept of the number of
candidates who are being trained in jam or jelly (combined) but not in
marmalade, in jelly and marmalade (combined) but not in jam, and in
jam and marmalade (combined) but not in jelly. And so a new and a
greater schedule will have to be compiled. But even after that for
a long time no one will notice that nothing has been said about the
number of candidates who are being trained in jam and jelly and
marmalade all combined and mashed up together, as they are at a picnic
on the sands.
Of the many debatable issues raised by this new Government project, in
so far as it affects the spheres of jelly and jam, I do not propose to
speak now; I prefer to confine my attention for the moment to the fruit
product which touches most nearly the home breakfast-table--namely,
marmalade.
There are three schools of thought in marmalade. There are those who
like the dark and very runny kind with large segments or wedges of
peel. There are those who prefer a clear and jellified substance with
tiny fragments of peel enshrined in it as the fly is enshrined in
amber. And there are some, I suppose, who favour a kind of glutinous
yellow composition, neither reactionary nor progressive, but something
betwixt and between. There can be very little doubt which kind of
marmalade the State Marmalade School will produce.
And then, mark you, one fine day the President of the Board of
Agriculture will turn round and issue a _communiqué_ to the Press like
this:--
"Preferential treatment in the supply of sugar for the purpose of
conducting the processes of manufacture of fruit products will
henceforward be given to those who possess the Campden diploma for
proficiency in the conduct of the above-named processes."
And where is your freedom then? Cooks and housewives will be condemned
either to make State marmalade or to make no marmalade at all.
Personally I am inclined to think that the President of the Board of
Agriculture will go further than this. I think that encouragement will
be given to those who take the State Marmalade course to follow it up
with a subsidiary or finishing course of wasp treatment.
And in wasp treatment also there are three schools. There is what is
called the CHURCHILL school, which hits out right and left with an
infuriated spoon. Then there is the MONTAGU school, which takes no
provocative action, but sits still and says, "They won't sting you if
you don't irritate them;" it says this especially when they are flying
round somebody else's head. And lastly there is the Medium school,
which, choosing the moment when the wasp is busily engaged, presses it
down gently and firmly into the marmalade, so that the last spoonfuls
of the dish are not so much a fruit product as a kind of entomological
preserve. The last way, I think, will be the State way of dealing with
wasps, and a reward will probably be offered for the stings of all
wasps embalmed on Coalition lines.
The electorate has stuck to the Government through the Peace Treaty,
through Mesopotamia, through Ireland and through coal. Can it stick to
them, is what I ask, through marmalade?