THE POSITION OF THE U.C.B.S.
While the position of the average private baker was that which has been described above, the baking departments of Co-operative societies found themselves in a very much worse position in direct ratio as they had been loyal hitherto in the use of Co-operatively milled flour. The flour mills of Scotland did not produce more than one half of the flour which was used in the country, with the result that the remainder had to be imported; but the Scottish Co-operative Wholesale Society imported wheat and themselves milled practically all the flour sold by them. The consequence was that as the quality of “Government Regulation” flour deteriorated, the flour which was supplied by the Wholesale Society’s mills, in common with that supplied by the other millers, was of such a nature that bread baked with it was inferior in quality and unpalatable. As, however, bakers were compelled to take flour from the source from which they procured it at the time when the Food Control regulations came into force, those who had formerly used a considerable proportion of imported flour were allowed to mix a good percentage of the flour which was still being imported with the “Regulation” flour, and were thus enabled to produce a comparatively white and palatable loaf; while the Wholesale Society, which had not been in the habit of importing much flour, were now allowed by those responsible for the bread regulations to import only a very small proportion, and their customers suffered accordingly. It was only after repeated representations had been made to the Government and the Wheat Commission that, ultimately, the proportion of imported flour which Co-operative bakers generally were allowed to use was raised considerably.
From this cause the Baking Society was as great a sufferer as were the others. The bread became more and more unpalatable as the admixture of foreign cereals in the flour used increased, and complaints about the quality of the bread began to come in with irritating frequency. The receipt of these complaints, justifiable as they were, must have been all the more irritating to the committee from the fact that they found themselves the victims of circumstances over which they had not the slightest control. They knew that the bread which they were producing was unpalatable, and the fact that the Germans had to eat bread which was very much inferior was but poor consolation in view of the fact that many of their trade rivals were able to produce better bread because of the larger proportion of white flour which they were allowed to use. There ensued, as a consequence, a very considerable decline in the bread sales of the Society. The customer societies would have taken the bread, but their members could not and would not eat it. From much the same causes the trade in biscuits and in teabread declined also. The use of sugar in biscuits or in teabread was prohibited, as was the manufacture of pastries. The result was that while the output for the quarter which ended in October 1916 was 68,533 sacks, that for the quarter which ended in October 1917 was 67,132 sacks, and that for the corresponding quarter of 1918 was 62,867. And if the details for loaf bread in M‘Neil Street alone are taken, the contrast is still more striking. The output for 1918 had fallen below that of 1915 by over 400 sacks, and below that of the quarter which ended in April 1917 by over 12,000 sacks.