The full toll of this trade upon our scanty food supply, growing shorter and shorter while the queues outside our food shops grow longer and longer, is staggering indeed, even now with drink about three-quarters stopped. We must remember that it makes no difference that the barley has been malted; it is still good human food, and every ounce of it should be mixed with grain for making bread. Let us remember, also, that _brewer’s sugar is a good pure sugar_, the objection to it being largely the objection most of us have to standard bread—its colour. Malt or sugar, every ounce a brewer destroys is food stolen from the people. Let us take expert opinion on the subject. The Food Value of Brewer’s Sugar We do not, of course, use this dark sugar when white sugar is cheap and easily procurable, but during the war we have used it for coffee, cocoa, and tea; and for puddings where colour did not matter. We have used it a good deal in our bakeries for chocolate goods, where colour again does not matter. It is a good, pure sugar, and the colour is the principal drawback. _Letter to Arthur Mee from a London caterer_ The Food Value of Brewer’s Malt Malt flour can be used to make excellent cake with 50 per cent. wheat flour. It is sweet and pleasant to taste without the need of any sugar. Good scones can be made with 25 per cent. of malt flour. Its use in bread made with yeast causes too much fermentation in the bread, but it has no effect on baking-powder. The Food Controller’s Department is aware of the practicability of using malt flour, but the sale is restricted in order to limit its use for making beer. Brewers and maltsters are too patriotic to wish to use for beer what could be applied to food in case of a serious shortage, and the large stocks of barley and malt can supplement the supply of wheat flour. _Letter from a Brewer in the “Times,” April 11, 1917_ Yet we have seen our Government holding up sugar for brewers; we have seen our Food Controller refuse to release a caterer’s sugar unless it were sold to a brewer; we have seen a Government short of food-ships bringing in brewers’ vats and casks of rum; and we see the Government still holding up this malt that would feed a people asking for more bread. ------------------------------------------------------------------------ The Tunes They Play Strange tunes we hear the fiddlers play, but their music does not charm away the troubles of a famine-threatened land. From morning till night the prayer of the people rises, “Give us this day our daily bread,” but the heart of Downing Street is hardened, and the nation’s bread goes day by day to the destroyer. But all the time we see the measure of the courage of our rulers on the hoardings in the streets. We know their posters by heart.