66 BIOLOGICAL PROBLEMS 



As regards the barley, some of you in your early 

 enthusiams may have investigated "barley meal" as 

 a substitute for flour, and have quickly recoiled 

 from it. You will therefore agree with the Royal 

 Society Committee that only part of the barley can be 

 used for human consumption. They estimate that 

 60 per cent of the barley, or rather over half, can be 

 used for food. This is perhaps a low estimate. We 

 have raised the percentage of wheat flour obtained 

 from the grain from 70 to 80 per cent, and may go 

 higher, and it seems probable that by careful milling 

 at least 70 per cent might be extracted from barley. 

 However, let us follow our authorities and take 

 60 per cent, or 573,000 tons, of flour as obtainable 

 from barley. The whole of the grits may be used as 

 food directly, making 630,000 tons of food from the 

 cereals. As regards the sugar, I am in something of 

 a difficulty, for it has been stated repeatedly in the 

 House of Commons that this sugar is unfit for human 

 consumption. I wonder if the Chancellor of the Ex- 

 chequer has seen the <4 foot' sugar which was con- 

 sumed by many of us last year, whether fit or unfit 

 for human consumption. The Royal Society Com- 

 mittee tactfully avoids this point, and accepts the 

 brewers' sugar as human food. And, in any case, 

 whether it is fit for human consumption or not, this 

 120,000 tons of sugar occupies tonnage, and thus 

 prevents the importation of other foods which are fit 

 for human consumption, and which we need to im- 

 port. The sugar must then be taken as a potential 

 food for man, and that at its full face value. 



In 1916, therefore, 750,000 tons of material which 

 were available directly as human food were utilized 

 to make beer. In addition, a certain amount of very 

 highly cultivated soil was used to grow hops, which 

 have no value as food ; this soil could have been 



