increasingly urban population which has been consuming a larger and larger part of the food surplus." THE FOOD CONTROLLER No policy of _laissez-faire_ for handling the food situation was possible. The need of direction was paramount and required administrative talent of a high order. Fortunately the United States met this demand. The work of Herbert M. Hoover was one of the main factors in securing the Allied victory. This was recognized by as conservative an organ of public opinion as the London _Economist_, which speaks of him as an unimpeachable authority and as the organizer of the Allied victory. His experience is a tribute to the wonderful readiness and self-sacrifice shown by the Americans in the matter of food consumption and to the untiring and increasing success of our fleet in combating the submarine. How much success in the war depended upon food supplies may be gauged from the panicky feeling prevailing in Government quarters in England when it was reported in the winter of 1917--18, that the American wheat surplus had been used up. Lord Rhonda, the British Food Controller, cabled to Mr. Hoover--"We are beaten, the war is over." Then began the era in the United States of wheatless days and war bread. The result of this period of national abstinence enabled the exportation to Europe of about 150,000,000 bushels of wheat. A British member of the Allied Food Commission said it was very remarkable to see a whole nation denying itself of all wheat products, "not because it was short but because it wanted to assist." This rationing was accomplished with very little exercise of authority, and the peril of the defeat of the Allies by famine was averted. [Illustration: Centres of Live Stock Production Throughout the World] AMERICA'S CONTRIBUTION IN FOOD TO THE ALLIES Mr. Hoover in a letter to President Wilson stated that the total value of American food shipments to Allied countries for their armies, for the civilian population, Belgium relief and Red Cross, amounted to about $1,400,000,000 for the fiscal year, 1918: "Shipments of meats, fats, and dairy products were as follows, Pounds. Fiscal year, 1916--17 2,166,500,000 Fiscal year, 1917--18 3,011,100,000 Increase 844,600,000 "'Our slaughterable animals at the beginning of the last fiscal year were not appreciably larger in number than the year before, and particularly in hogs; they were probably less'; so, as Mr. Hoover points out, 'the increase in shipments is due to conservation and the extra weight of animals added by our farmers.' Our shipments of cereal and cereal products have been, Bushels. Fiscal year, 1916--17 259,900,000 Fiscal year, 1917--18 340,800,000 Increase 80,900,000