Ashley Sterne The Sugar Shortage

Ashley Sterne began his writing career with comic editorial pieces for London Opinion.  Here is an early piece from the time of the Great War.  The piece was republished on 13 May 1916 in the Taranaki (New Zealand) Herald. 

Vocabulary Notes: 
Demerara: a large-grained, somewhat crunchy, raw cane sugar with origins in Guyana (a colony formerly called Demerara)
Rufescent: tinged with red
Greengage: a pale green plum
Saccharous: (archaic) relating to sugar

Warning to sensitive readers: There are touches of Political Incorrectness in the second and fifth paragraphs.


The Sugar Shortage
(By Ashley Sterne in London Opinion)

The Royal Commission that has been sitting on Cargoes has reported that a great deal of the space in our holds which might be occupied by copper and iron ores for Sweden has been selfishly monopolised by us for the conveyance of sugar for our own use; and that this has got to stop.

Already various suggestions have been made in the press by “Harassed Housewife,” “Mother of Seven,” and other pseudonymous females; but none of them appears to have hit the right nail on the head — which is what usually happens when a woman handles a hammer.  The most practical scheme for enforcing sugar economy that I have yet heard of has emanated from my own grocer, who recently executed my order for 14 lbs. of Demerara by sending me 12 and charging me for 15.

But there should be equally effective and less drastic methods of controlling the sugar traffic, and by way of example I cite that of the Worshipful Company of Swiss Rollers and Doughnutters that is already taking active steps, I understand, to curtail the amount of jam employed in — and hence to restrict the quantity of sugar required for — the manufacture of these inflating comestibles.  I know that there is a popular belief that neither Swiss rolls not doughnuts actually contain jam; but this is an error.  If you bisect a doughnut, and then examine it through a microscope, you will observe a small crimson stain and about half-a-dozen tiny pellets of mahogany embedded somewhere near the centre, which upon being subject to spectrum analysis, will undoubtedly proved to be of the rufescent jams.  Similarly, if you unwind a coil of Swiss roll and examine the exposed surface closely, you will notice a thin green, gelatinous deposit which, if carefully removed with a cataract-knife and dissolved in water, will react to the Board of Trade’s test for greengage jam.

Further, the Amalgamated Society of Hardbakers and Peppermint-Droppers has decide to diminish the quantity of saccharous material in normal use, and to include in lieu thereof a more generous percentage of fish-glue and Portland cement in its product — a course of action that should certainly command the undying gratitude of the entire dental profession.

But admirable as these examples are, it is by individual effort that the greatest economies must be effected; and herein, I am afraid, the ladies will feel the coming scarcity more acutely than the men will.  A girl will go with us to a matinee, and think nothing of masticating her way through about a stone of chocolate cream, several slabs of cocoanut ice, and a fathom or so of barley-sugar in the course of the afternoon; and yet afterwards repair to a tea-shop and put five lumps of sugar in each cup of tea she drinks.  In view of this fact I foresee a rather thin time coming for the damsel who does not immediately determine to take her sweet-accustomed molar rigorously in hand, and train it to swallow the bitter pill of self-denial.

It is evident that the problem of the coming sugar shortage must be looked squarely in the face, taken promptly by the horns, and — if possible — nipped in the bud.  We must adopt as our motto that of the bloater-smokers of Yarmouth: “What cannot be cured must be endured.”  But, at the same time, I have roughly formulated a scheme whereby our endurance shall not be unduly taxed.  Briefly my idea is to make an organised effort to increase our native honey supply.  Honey is a most capable understudy for most of the roles played by jam — for instance jam-role.  There are doubtless many men over military age who would be only too willing in the face of the present emergency to become bee-herds, and attend to the distribution at our homes of a daily supply of honey.  Thus the absence of sugar and jam from our breakfast-tables and the faces of our offspring will be rendered barely noticeable.