https://www.thetimes.co.uk/edition/register/provision-queues-abused-x5xr8f97n
december 19, 1917
Provision queues abused
One of the dangers of the food queues is that they are being used by a certain type of agitator to draw exaggerated comparisons between the position of the working classes and that of people with plenty of money. “There are no queues for the well-to-do. A deposit account at the stores will secure all the food you want” is the argument, and as there are no queues outside the stores the contention at first sight seems well founded. Without compulsory rationing complete equality of distribution cannot be obtained, but inquiries show that people who buy their provisions through the stores are not obtaining an undue share of the available tea, butter, margarine, and sugar. At the same time it is undoubted that the queues are being abused by people who ought not to use them. This is particularly true in the City. Business men, whose wives are finding difficulty in getting their orders fulfilled in the suburbs, are sending out office boys to buy tea and butter in the City. These boys swell the queues and probably prevent poor people from getting supplies. Queues are worse in the poorer districts owing to the small quantities sold to each customer. It is impossible to obtain a sufficient quantity of any article for a week’s consumption on one visit, so women have to stand in a queue every two or three days. The fact that there are no queues outside the large stores is in part explained by the size of the department where provisions are sold. There are no street queues, but it is common to see customers standing three and four deep at the counters. “All our members are treated alike” was the statement made at the Army and Navy Stores.
A round of some of the food queues in the London district yesterday showed that, in spite of the cold, the waiting people were quite cheerful. They stamped their feet to warm themselves, and chatted with arrivals who looked with dismay at the length of the queues. The hardest cases were elderly men and women who could not face the cold, and married women in search of a little margarine for their children. Notices were posted yesterday in all the bars and dining rooms of the House of Commons that no milk can now be served as a beverage, and that members who order tea, coffee, or cocoa are to be asked whether they require milk.
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