( 198 ) 



Complete Rationing Is Prohibitive 



Under some such system, ticket rationing might be made 

 to work. This would be very wasteful of manpower. To ration 

 all the activities of 125 million people adequately would 

 probably require the time of, say, about four million others. 

 If they received, say, $3,000 in salary, transportation, heat, 

 light, and office rent, the net cost would approximate ten per 

 cent of the nation's effort. Complete rationing under such a 

 program would reduce the net product of the nation. 



Cost-of-living studies indicate that food, clothing, and 

 fuel represent more than fifty per cent of the nation's busi- 

 ness. Despite "pull in your belt" programs, the net reduction 

 in the consumption of these articles is likely to be small. Any 

 considerable reduction would occur only at the cost of a ris- 

 ing death-rate. If the nation spends fifty per cent of its in- 

 come for these indispensable items, then the nation can 

 spend only fifty per cent of its income for the war effort. 



The nation's program is to feed, train, and equip eleven or 

 twelve million fighting men; construct, man, and operate a 

 two-ocean navy; export billions of dollars' worth of Lend- 

 Lease foods and other instruments of war; and spend bil- 

 lions for a huge merchant marine. If it does all these things, 

 it will have spent half the national income. 



If the nation attempted a thoroughgoing system of ticket 

 rationing, its cost would be a deduction from the war effort 

 and not from civilians. Even a nation as rich as the United 

 States cannot afford the luxury of an expensive new system 

 of ticket rationing. We could afford a rigid system of regula- 

 tion if we did not have a Lend-Lease program, or if ten per 

 cent of our food could be imported at no expense, as is the 

 case in England, or if it were possible to bring in a few mil- 

 lion slave laborers as in Germany. 



