The Government Press, naturally, professed to see in the inactivity of the Cabinet a proof that they had the matter well in hand. Avoidance of panic, restriction by voluntary effort of all unnecessary consumption of food, and the postponement of inquiries likely to interfere with the wise projects of the Premier: these formed the stock of their leading articles. The gutter organ of the Opposition retorted by publishing the complete menu of the Premier’s dinner on the previous day, which it had obtained from some waiter in the hotel at which he was staying; and it accompanied this item of news by interspersed extracts from the Government organs in which appeals had been made for a less luxurious form of living. It must be remembered that this stage of the sequence of events occupied only a brief period. If I am not wrong, it was within ten days of the outbreak of the Blight that we got the first American cables announcing the appearance of the epidemic among the great wheat areas of the Middle West. Almost immediately after came similar news from Canada. The meaning of this was not at first appreciated by the people as a whole. They still clung to the idea that grain would be forthcoming if a sufficiently high price were paid for it; but those of us who had tried to forecast the possibilities of the situation found our worst fears taking concrete form. Soon even the unthinking were forced to understand what the American news implied. If the Blight spread over the wheat-fields of the Western continent, there would be no surplus grain there for export at all. That source of supply would barely suffice for the mouths at home. Then, following each other like hammer-strokes upon metal, each biting deeper than the last, came the cables from the rest of the world. Egypt reported the outbreak of the Blight in the Nile valley; British East Africa became affected. The news from the Argentine fell like a thunderbolt, for we realised that with it the last great open source of wheat had failed. The Don and Volga basins followed with the same tale. Over India, the Blight raged with almost unheard-of virulence. Then, days after the others, Australia was smitten, and our last hopes vanished. * * * * * During all this period, it must be remembered, we had no idea of the origin of our calamities. We referred to the thing always as “The Blight,” though it was made clear at quite an early stage that no plant parasite was concerned in the matter at all. The most careful microscopic examination of affected vegetation had been made without revealing anything in the nature of a fungus or noxious growth.