There can be no doubt that under the circumstances this regulation was necessary. There was a time in the history of these islands when practically all the food consumed by the people was grown in the country; but during the lifetime of the last generation this position had gradually altered until Britain was dependent on wheat imported from abroad for four-fifths of the bread supply of her people. There had always been pessimists who foresaw, as a result of a war with a maritime power, a danger of interruption to the steady supply of seaborne food which was necessary if the people were to be saved from starvation, and who uttered warnings which passed more or less unheeded; but the time had arrived when these warnings seemed likely to become justified. Towards the end of 1916 it was becoming apparent that there was likely to be a world shortage of foodstuffs, and particularly of wheat, and doubts were being expressed in well-informed circles as to whether there would be supplies sufficient to enable the people to carry on until the 1917 crop was ready. While this world shortage was due in a measure to the war, because of the number of men who usually devoted themselves to agricultural pursuits who were then engaged in war work of one form or another or serving with the Forces, it was also due in large measure to a world shortage for which Nature, through the medium of a bad summer and a wet autumn, was responsible. The result was that in this country the regulations affecting flour extraction became more and more rigorous, until not only were millers extracting a proportion approaching 25 per cent. additional from the wheat, rejecting practically nothing but the outer husk, but many other varieties of cereal, even including a considerable proportion of maize, were pressed into service and mixed with the flour from which bread had to be baked. In some cases potato flour was also used for this purpose. Fortunately, the famine which had threatened in the summer of 1917 was staved off, but the inveterate submarine campaign waged by the Germans during the whole of that year was responsible for the destruction of many food-carrying ships and of many thousands of tons of wheat and flour which were being conveyed to this country from America as well as of many other varieties of food. BAKERS’ DIFFICULTIES.