Public Statement Issued by the Food Administration1
Mr. Hoover to-day (Wednesday) issued the following:
President Wilson to-day settled the arrangements by which the fleet of steamers employed by the Belgian Relief Commission were restored to their normal number and the grave peril which for the past month has overhung the 10,000,000 Belgian and French people in German-occupied Belgium and France is removed.
As a result of the diversion of a large part of the shipping employed by the Relief Commission to other war purposes, it had been necessary to reduce the bread ration to 6 ounces per diem, this being 1 ounce below even the present German ration, with corresponding reductions in the other foodstuffs.
Negotiations have been for some time under way between the British, French, and American Governments through Messrs. W. B. Poland, in Europe, and Mr. Prentiss Gray, of the Relief Commission, here, with the cooperation of Mr. Hurley, of the United States Shipping Board; Mr. Franklin, of the ship-control committee; and Mr. Stevens, their representative in Europe, and the British shipping executive, by whose combined efforts arrangements have been made through which the American and British Governments have each undertaken to find one-half of the necessary shipping in order to restore the volume of foodstuffs necessary for the maintenance of these people.
Ships have been assigned from those formerly plying in the Allied food trades and adjustments have been made in the American shipping position, amongst others, to take 50,000 tons of shipping from the Cuban sugar trade applying it to equivalent purposes. This latter has been made possible by the reduction in sugar to the confectionery and sweet-drink industries, through the rationing scheme now in operation by the Food Administration.
Our President and Premiers Clemenceau and Lloyd George have all personally interested themselves in finding a solution to the situation. Shipping providing for the dispatch of 90,000 tons of foodstuffs in the next 30 days has been placed at the disposal of the Commission, and further arrangements settled for the future.
Even with this additional shipping, the Belgian ration must be of the most meager character, but I am confident that actual starvation on a wholesale scale has again been saved.
- The Official Bulletin, Washington, May 23, 1918 (vol. 2, No. 317), p. 1.↩