Your telegram No. 28. [1]

Following personal from Mr. Attlee for Mr. Chifley:

Begins.

I was most grateful to you for your very helpful telegram of 18th
January about wheat. I am relieved to know that you will continue
to give your personal attention to this problem. it is indeed hard
to exaggerate the gravity of the situation. It now seems even
worse than it did a fortnight ago.

2. According to latest advice, exports of wheat from the United
States may well turn out at 500,000 tons below the figures assumed
when Sir Ben Smith was in Washington, and exports from the
Argentine may also fall short of estimates by 250,000 to 500,000
tons. There is no help to be got from rice which will also be well
below requirements. Meanwhile, the needs of importing countries
have increased. We have had most alarming telegrams from the
Viceroy. [2] There has been widespread failure of crops due to a
tidal wave in Madras and prolonged drought in Madras, Bombay,
Mysore and the Punjab. There are insufficient stocks in the
country to meet the short-fall and no possibility of economy by
reducing rations which are already very low. India must thus have
an import of at least two million tons of rice, wheat or millet,
during 1946, if famine of a dimension and intensity greater than
the Bengal famine of 1943 [is] to be avoided. This is an increase
of 500,000 tons on their earlier request and I should not be
surprised if in point of fact they do not need more. In the
circumstances of political crisis which are approaching, a famine
in India would be bound to lead to disorders and would be likely
to remove the last hope of an orderly solution of the Indian
problem.

3. We have been considering here how to bridge the gap caused by
the reduction of nearly a quarter of a million tons in our own
imports into the United Kingdom during the first half of 1946. We
shall have to reduce our stocks far below the safety level, and
run the risk of interference with internal distribution of flour
and bread if there is any irregularity in the arrival of imports.

We shall have to increase our extraction rate of flour from 80% to
85% and return to the darker bread which we accepted as a wartime
necessity but hoped we had discarded with the end of hostilities.

We shall also have to reduce our fat ration from 8 oz. to 7 oz. a
week which is lower than at any time during the war. This last is
a direct consequence of the wheat shortage; for India will have to
use for food in India groundnuts which she would otherwise have
exported to us for fats manufacture.

4. The decision to increase our flour extraction rate, coupled
with the decision taken at Washington to divert coarse grains from
animal to human use, will substantially reduce our supplies of
meat, bacon and eggs. Our plans for re-establishing our livestock
herds will suffer a heavy setback and a considerable slaughter of
pigs and poultry will be inevitable. Finally, we shall launch a
vigorous publicity campaign to economise to the utmost all food,
particularly bread. These further sacrifices for which we must
call will be a severe strain on our people who have been looking
to some relaxation of the standards of austerity which they have
cheerfully accepted throughout the war.