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This is the first comprehensive study that has appeared on consumption and rationing in the present war. All types of rationing and the experience of a very large number of countries are brought under review, on the basis of material collected by the Economic Intelligence Service of the League of Nations. Rationing and other measures of consumption control are enforced in order to ensure an equitable distribution of limited—and in many countries drastically curtailed—supplies of certain essential goods, such as foodstuffs, clothing and fuel. But they play a further very vital role in war economy, by reducing (or limiting) civilian demand in order to liberate maximum resources for war purposes and by making possible the control of prices. The volume opens with a discussion of this broad problem of consumption control in war economy, the various methods of rationing, the conditions under which they can operate successfully and the connection between rationing and price control. Particular attention is naturally devoted to food. In the second chapter tables are given showing, for some thirty countries, by categories of consumers and groups of foodstuffs, rations prevailing in the spring of 1942. As regards Europe, available evidence seems to show that diets are adequate in the United Kingdom, Denmark, Sweden and Switzerland, and not critically short in calories (though apparently deficient in animal proteins, fats, minerals and certain vitamins) in Germany, despite the substantial cut in the German rations which occurred in April, 1942. The situation in Italy and Spain is decidedly worse than in Germany. This is also true of the occupied countries, except Denmark. Not only are the legal rations lower, but those rations are frequently unobtainable in the shops; and even if obtainable, it is often doubtful whether full rations can be purchased by the poorest classes, prices having risen out of all proportion to the frozen wage‐rates. Diets in the Netherlands, Czechoslovakia and Norway are nutritionally poorer and more deficient in calories than in Germany. In France and Belgium, where the rations represent about 60 per cent. of the pre‐war calorie consumption, many of those who are unable to eke out their rations by purchases on the “ black market ” are living at the barest level of subsistence. In Finland the rations represent about 55 per cent., in Poland (General‐Government) less than 50 per cent. of the pre‐war calorie consumption. In the latter country, in parts of Yugoslavia, and above all in Greece, there is famine. To meet differences in individual needs, two distinct systems have been evolved. In Germany, where about 90 per cent. of food consumption is rationed, rations are differentiated according to kinds of foods and classes of consumers—the latter being divided into categories by occupations (heavy worker, very heavy worker, light worker) and by sex, age, etc. The rations of bread, fat and meat of “ very heavy workers,” for example, are between two and three times as large as those of normal consumers. The German system, which has been generally applied in the occupied countries, is rigid and leaves a minimum of free consumers' choice. The British system is far more flexible. Bread and potatoes are free, thus permitting everyone to obtain an unlimited number of calories, while restaurant and canteen meals are supplementary to the individual's basic ration. Special needs are met by the allocation of extra rations to canteens catering to industrial workers, by the extension of free school meals, and by “ distribution schemes ” giving children, mothers and sick people first claim on available supplies of protective foods such as milk and fruit‐juice. Flexibility is also maintained by the group rationing of canned goods. According to this system each item within the group is valued in points and the consumer may buy whatever he desires up to a given total point value. It is considered of great importance that all, irrespective of income, should be able to obtain their quota of essential foods. Among the measures introduced for this purpose are the far‐reaching subsidies to keep down prices. Many aspects of the British system are naturally to be found elsewhere: for example, the subsidisation of staple foods is practised in Sweden and certain other European countries; Germany distributes free vitamin preparations to school children; canteen and school feeding is common in Germany and many of the occupied areas, though for these meals ration cards have, as a rule, to be given up. In the case of food, there are definite limits to the amount by which consumption can be reduced without endangering health and life; in the case of most, though not all, consumers' goods, there are no such obvious limits and, in fact, the consumption of such goods has been drastically curtailed. Available information on the subject is given in the third chapter. The group rationing system just mentioned has been universally applied in the case of clothing. But in Germany, most of the occupied areas and Italy, rationing lias been supplemented by a system of special permits, without which no purchase of certain articles of clothing can be made. By the first half of 1941, purchases of clothing in Germany had been reduced by some 50 per cent. from the pre‐war level. The clothes rationing introduced in the United Kingdom in June, 1941, led to a decrease of about 30 per cent. in the volume of sales in the second half of that year compared with the same period of 1940. Fuel, electric current, soap, and other articles of household consumption are subject to restrictions of varying degrees of severity; the production of luxury goods has been restricted or stopped, while such limited quantities as may reach the market are subject to drastically increased taxation; the production of most durable consumers' goods— refrigerators, household furniture, pianos, etc.—has likewise been stopped. The last chapter contains a brief analysis of the effects which war‐time restrictions have had on the aggregate volume of consumption in various countries. Consumption has been heavily reduced in all European countries and in Japan; in the United States, Canada, Australia and certain other countries it appears to have increased up to the latter part of 1941. In the United Kingdom the reduction in consumption provided about one‐third of the total domestic resources absorbed in the war effort in 1941. The requirements of war production have also been met to a considerable extent by the consumption of capital. Germany, in particular, has had to resort to capital consumption on a large scale, in spite of a curtailment of private consumption by some 25 to 30 per cent. In reviewing the whole body of evidence, especially concerning food rationing, it is observed that the rationing systems which have been developed are “ more than a mere method of restricting individual consumption. They aim in fact at securing a minimum diet for the population as a whole and, in spite of the necessary limitations imposed by the war‐time scarcity, they contain the elements of a distributive system in which consumption is guided not so much by individual purchasing power as by human wants.”

ELSEWHERE in this number we list libraries which have Esent us copies of their annual reports which we are glad to have. Now and again we are able to elaborate on these, but in the present issue that has not been possible. We would say, however, that these reports are deserving of the attention of librarians generally, and of students at the library schools. They are records of work in progress, and they do suggest the development of library policy. The best of them are of textbook value.

Mr. H H. Bagnall, B.Sc., F.I.C., Public Analyst for the City of Birmingham, comments in his annual report on the work done at the City laboratory and on the still apparent need for standards and definitions of food, and of legislation to enforce their application in manufacture or in shops. Of the 5,472 samples taken in the city under the Sale of Food and Drugs Acts 4 per cent. were found to be adulterated, but he observes that misdescription of articles of food is much more common than actual adulteration. The number of samples taken during the year was larger, and the variety greater, than in any previous year. About 140 different varieties of foods and drugs were examined, and few, if any, foods were not sampled. It was reassuring to learn that the Minister of Health was considering the introduction of legislation on the lines of the recommendations submitted in 1934 by the Departmental Committee which enquired into the working of the law as to the composition and description of articles of food other than milk. Ice‐cream was a case in point. In fifty‐one samples taken, the fat content varied between less than 2 per cent. and 19 per cent. Roughly, the samples were of two classes. Those containing less than 4 per cent. were bought mainly from carts in the streets of parks, and were probably the products of smaller makers; those with more than 8 per cent. were manufactured on a large scale by a few well‐known firms. “It is obvious something is wrong here,” Mr. Bagnall reports. “Apart from any question of price, ice cream is, or should be, a valuable article of food, and the purchaser should have some means of knowing what to expect when he asks for it. At the moment he may get a substance which approximates to frozen custard (not made with eggs !) or he may get a really first‐class product containing a considerable amount of cream. The position is similar with respect to a number of other products, particularly compounded articles; and the beneficial effect of legislation in such matters is clearly shown in the case of condensed and dried milks. This kind of governmental interference with manufacture used to be thought of as grandmotherly legislation; but, when one remembers the sort of statement, bearing no relation to the contents, that used to appear on tins of condensed milk, one cannot but feel that there may be some virtue in these departures from laisser‐faire methods. At any rate, no one would wish to return to the old haphazard days when condensed milk was simply what the manufacturers chose to make it. It is curious that the law is far more careful that the composition of feeding stuffs sold for the use of cattle should be made known to the purchaser than that articles sold for human consumption should be sold under a guarantee of quality. If I buy, say, cotton cake for feeding cows, the vendor is bound to give me an invoice stating the amounts of oil, protein and fibre contained in it, and severe penalties are entailed if false statements are made. If I buy an infant's food, however, there is no compulsion on the part of the maker to give particulars regarding its composition. In fact, the label may contain statements entirely at variance with the analysis, but which, nevertheless, are of too vague a character to become the subjects of police court proceedings. It is surely as important that the mother of a child should know something of the composition of the food she uses as that a farmer should know the food value of his cattle cakes, and it is to be hoped that legislation on such matters may not be unduly delayed. The misdescription of articles of food is a much more common thing than adulteration. Under modern conditions of inspection and sampling, it simply does not pay manufacturers and retailers to risk the cruder forms of adulteration and substitution, but the wide use of advertising as an aid to sales, often leads to the use of exaggerated statements regarding the quality and food value of articles of diet. We are all familiar with the extraordinary claims put forward on behalf of particular foods of well‐known composition which seek to show that they possess unique properties not shared by other similar foods. It is often impossible for the food analyst to check such statements, and the public is deceived into thinking that a superior article is being obtained. Often it is only in the advertisements relating to the article in question that one finds these exaggerated statements, and when a tin or packet is bought it is found that the label gives a much milder description of the contents. Under the present law only statements appearing on the label can be made the subject of legal proceedings. It is desirable that false claims appearing in advertisements should also be brought within the scope of food and drug legislation.” During the year a number of samples of pasteurised milk were examined by the “phosphatase test.” Of 112 samples, fifty‐eight were efficiently pasteurised; in thirty‐six cases some technical error had occurred during the process, such as imperfect temperature or time control, or a small admission of raw milk; and in the remaining eighteen cases there was evidence of gross negligence. The samples were taken at selected times and places thought likely to yield abnormal figures, so that too much weight should not be given to the fact that about 48 per cent. of the samples did not pass the test.”

DURING much of the Second World War, the affairs of the Library Association were conducted for the Council by an Emergency Committee. The record of its meeting on 10th June 1941, includes the following: “A resolution having been received suggesting that a committee be formed to consider post‐war reconstruction, it was resolved that by means of a notice in the LIBRARY ASSOCIATION RECORD, Branches and Sections should be invited to formulate suggestions for the consideration of the committee. A draft questionnaire for the purpose of an enquiry into the effects of the war on the public library service was approved”. In July, the Committee reported “further arrangements … for carrying out an exhaustive survey designed to give the necessary data for full and detailed consideration and ultimate recommendation as to the future of public libraries, their administration and their place in the social services”. The promised notice appeared as an editorial in September.

ALTHOUGH the first Public Libraries (Scotland) Act was placed on the Statute Book in 1853, it was not until 1899 that the Corporation of the City of Glasgow was empowered to establish and maintain public libraries throughout the city. Between 1876 and 1897 four attempts were made to secure public approval for the adoption of the Public Libraries (Scotland) Acts, but when all these efforts proved unsuccessful, the Corporation decided in June, 1888 to include in a Local Bill for submission to Parliament, certain clauses conferring upon themselves the power to become a library authority. Promoted in 1899, the Bill became known as the Glasgow Corporation (Tramways, Libraries, etc.) Act 1899, and the library clauses passed through Parliament without opposition and received Royal Assent on 1st August, 1899. The powers conferred by this Local Act empowered the Corporation:

The institution of food and cookery exhibitions and the dissemination of practical knowledge with respect to cookery by means of lectures and demonstrations are excellent things in their way. But while it is important that better and more scientific attention should be generally given to the preparation of food for the table, it must be admitted to be at least equally important to insure that the food before it comes into the hands of the expert cook shall be free from adulteration, and as far as possible from impurity,—that it should be, in fact, of the quality expected. Protection up to a certain point and in certain directions is afforded to the consumer by penal enactments, and hitherto the general public have been disposed to believe that those enactments are in their nature and in their application such as to guarantee a fairly general supply of articles of tolerable quality. The adulteration laws, however, while absolutely necessary for the purpose of holding many forms of fraud in check, and particularly for keeping them within certain bounds, cannot afford any guarantees of superior, or even of good, quality. Except in rare instances, even those who control the supply of articles of food to large public and private establishments fail to take steps to assure themselves that the nature and quality of the goods supplied to them are what they are represented to be. The sophisticator and adulterator are always with us. The temptations to undersell and to misrepresent seem to be so strong that firms and individuals from whom far better things might reasonably be expected fall away from the right path with deplorable facility, and seek to save themselves, should they by chance be brought to book, by forms of quibbling and wriggling which are in themselves sufficient to show the moral rottenness which can be brought about by an insatiable lust for gain. There is, unfortunately, cheating to be met with at every turn, and it behoves at least those who control the purchase and the cooking of food on the large scale to do what they can to insure the supply to them of articles which have not been tampered with, and which are in all respects of proper quality, both by insisting on being furnished with sufficiently authoritative guarantees by the vendors, and by themselves causing the application of reasonably frequent scientific checks upon the quality of the goods.

Presents over sixty abstracts summarising the 1999 Employment Research Unit annual conference held at the University of Cardiff. Explores the multiple impacts of globalization on work and employment in contemporary organizations. Covers the human resource management implications of organizational responses to globalization. Examines the theoretical, methodological, empirical and comparative issues pertaining to competitiveness and the management of human resources, the impact of organisational strategies and international production on the workplace, the organization of labour markets, human resource development, cultural change in organisations, trade union responses, and trans‐national corporations. Cites many case studies showing how globalization has brought a lot of opportunities together with much change both to the employee and the employer. Considers the threats to existing cultures, structures and systems.