[The Luton Reporter: Tuesday, February 12th, 1918]

Last night Labour's three new representatives made their first appearance at the Luton Food Committee, and they made things so warm that at the end of the two and a quarter hours sitting the Committee adjourned with not much more than half the agenda dealt with.

The bone of contention was meat, and the atmosphere at time very heated. Incidentally, the Chairman (Alderman J. H. Staddon) announced that there were 38 bullocks in the market yesterday, and he had arranged for that number to be made up to 46. He seized upon a visit of the Deputy Commissioner to urge that Luton should be assured a weekly supply of at least 65, and in addition a stock of frozen meat which could be drawn upon in the event of an emergency, and this was to have attention.

Mr W. J. Mabley vigorously put forward a demand of organised labour for a system of rationing. He said they wanted the meat equally distributed among the whole of the butchers, so that one butcher did not have a big queue and a smaller butcher no supplies.

"Vested interests are of no consequence at the present time," he said. "We are fighting for the very existence of the country, and individuals who study vested interests more than they do the community at large are not patriotic. We don't want to get the public nervy and fed up through having to go in queues."

Mr Mabley's idea was ruled out by the Executive Officer [Town Clerk Mr William Smith] as impractical, because no butcher was allowed to sell more than 50 per cent of his October returns, and another suggestion that the meat should be commandeered and distributed through the local authority at a centre met with a like result.

A plea by Mr Sanders that butchers should be allowed to look after their regular customers instead of their being shut out by strangers raised a regular storm. "We are not accepting the regular customer dodge," said Mr Mabley, and Mr T. H. Knight contended that a tradesman was in business to supply the needs of the community and was the servant of the community.

"Let's get down to hard, solid facts," said Mr Knight. "I ask you to realise that we are at war. The old system of commercialism has broken down. The engineering factories had to give way and allowed themselves to be controlled by a Government department for the interests of the nation, and I appeal to the traders to realise the same position - that the interests of the nation are of paramount importance. If we lose the war, what are the private traders' interests worth? We all stand or fall on the food question. It is responsible for the unrest which will lead to the downfall of the country if we are not careful."

Alderman Wilkinson challenged Mr Knight with arrogating to himself a position he was not justified in taking up, and declared that the traders on the Committee were actuated by higher motives than he was, and were not talking so blindly and wildly as he.

Mr Mabley butted in with the contention that vested interests on the Committee were not prepared to forego their businesses in preference to the national interest, and Alderman Wilkinson retorted that the butchers were far more patriotic than they were given credit for being and earning considerably less than their critics.

This was only one of several breezy interludes in a rambling discussion which time and again led to the suggestion of a rationing scheme. The only definite suggestion came from Councillor Attwood and was that a committee should be formed "of the gentlemen who say they can do it" to at once go into the matter and report, but it was no good having cynical remarks made about one section of the Committee if the Committee was going to work in harmony and do any good.

"If you go to work in a reasonable frame of mind we will support you, but son't adopt an attitude of righteous superiority," he said.

After all this the Committee passed the matter over without having done any more than, as Mr Knight put it, "eased our minds". The Chairman said he knew it had to come, and Mr Knight repied that it had not been time wasted as long as they understood one another.

As a matter of fact the Executive Officer said he was going to confer with the Commissioner, at his request, about a number of problems in connection with a rationing scheme for meat, and after Wednesday he might be able to frame a scheme which would meet with the Ministry's approval. A scheme had been in his mind for six weeks, but there had been a good many difficulties about meat which had not been mentioned yet.