EFFECT IN THE HOUSEHOLD.

With the first days and weeks of the New Year a whole series of new food statues will come into effect. To begin with, we shall have the sugar ration. If anyone who reads these lines has not now her sugar-card, let her see about it without delay. Half a pound a head of the entire household, including servants, is all that will be obtainable, and this fact will call for very considerable reductions in the puddings and cakes of an average middle-class family. Under the “individual ticket” system adopted each servant can, of course, claim her own full allowance, and the fair allocation of the limited amount available will call for some forbearance and tact all round.

The new tea prices order, which comes into force on Jan. 1, should smooth some of the wrinkles that have lined the housewife’s brows. No longer should she have to complain that she cannot get Government tea, and that she has to pay extortionate prices for the rubbish she does get. The maximum price for uncontrolled tea will be 3s 8d per lb, and tea which is “controlled” must be sold at 2s 8d per lb, but a “reasonable additional charge” may be made for delivery. This charge, however, may not exceed ½d a lb, “or any reasonable sum actually paid by the seller for carriage.” The real problem, however, that, seems untouched by the Order is that of knowing whether the retailer still has tea at the “controlled” price, if he chooses to say he has none left, and that he has only that at 3s 8d. This has been the excuse for the 4s that has been the universal selling price of recent weeks.