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The transformation of France under De Gaulle from the “sick man of Europe” with governments changing every few months, to one of the world's strongest economies, holds lessons for us all. Of course France's virtual self‐sufficiency in food and fuel always ensured an eventual resurgence under a strong and stable government. We thought of this recently on a trip to Western Provence, the oldest part of France and one off the beaten tourist track. It was one of the earliest provinces of Imperial Rome and in each settlement the Romans tried to reproduce a petite Rome, with arena, theatre, baths and villas, so that many Provencal towns have as many Roman antiquities as Rome itself. In its beauty of line and colour, its architecture, clustered villages on hilltops and the tall Lombardy pines, the countryside looks Italian, but the people seem unlike the Italian, Spanish or French. We thought them descendants of the ancient Gaul, whose tribes settled all over Western Europe, from the shores of the Mediterranean to Galway Bay.

The factors which influence costs of production of food and the prices to the consumer have changed dramatically during this century, but especially since the establishment of trading systems all over the world. Gone are the days when the simple expedients of supply and demand alone governed the situation. The erosion of these principles began at the turn of the century, mainly as a result of the introduction by the rapidly developing industrial power of the USA to protect her own industries against the cheaper products of European countries. They introduced the system of tariffs on imported manufactured goods; it grew and eventually was made to apply to wide sectors of industry. European countries retaliated but the free trade policy of Britain's Liberal government was making the country a dumping ground for all other country's cheap products and surpluses.

The focal point of the Information Technology Skills shortage problem has been the Butcher committee, which first met in June of 1984. This Department of Trade & Industry committee, chaired by John Butcher MP, arose from several sources. First NEDO and its electronics committee has been saying for some time that there is an acute problem which was not being tackled. Secondly the Alvey committee, organising important research activities, became alarmed that its plans were at risk because it could not see where the human resources necessary to carry out the additional work were to be found. Thirdly the CBI took up the problem and, led by Sir Austin Bide, made representations to Kenneth Baker MP who was then the Minister of Information Technology in the DTI.

In a recent reference to changes brought about by the local government reorganisation of 1974, we criticised some of the names given to the new areas. Some of these name changes have made difficulties for those who follow from afar the doings of local authorities, as well as raising the ire of local people. Local names, however, are not the only casualty. The creation of new and larger governmental organisations rarely, if ever, results in economy and as anticipated, it was not long before the new local authorities were being directed to embrace financial stringency and all that it incurs. One such other casualty has been the loss of so many of the annual reports of local authority departments, very few now arriving at BFJ offices. In every case, the reason has been the same—severe restrictions on spending. Not that this was not necessary in many fields, but in respect of annual reports, we are convinced it was false economy. For so many of the reports, it was our pleasure to review them in the pages of BFJ. A prominent Labour politician was once heard to refer to them as “hard and dry reports for hard and dry officials”. It all depends probably on what you are looking for in them. Statistics there must be but most enforcement officers and public analysts, endeavour to keep these to the minimum, the general impression being that these are “dry”. If you are looking for trends, for comparison of the year under review with preceding years and then for comparing the results reported in one part of the country with another, where the population, eating habits, consumer reactions may be different, the tables of statistics are highly important.

The institution of food and cookery exhibitions and the dissemination of practical knowledge with respect to cookery by means of lectures and demonstrations are excellent things in their way. But while it is important that better and more scientific attention should be generally given to the preparation of food for the table, it must be admitted to be at least equally important to insure that the food before it comes into the hands of the expert cook shall be free from adulteration, and as far as possible from impurity,—that it should be, in fact, of the quality expected. Protection up to a certain point and in certain directions is afforded to the consumer by penal enactments, and hitherto the general public have been disposed to believe that those enactments are in their nature and in their application such as to guarantee a fairly general supply of articles of tolerable quality. The adulteration laws, however, while absolutely necessary for the purpose of holding many forms of fraud in check, and particularly for keeping them within certain bounds, cannot afford any guarantees of superior, or even of good, quality. Except in rare instances, even those who control the supply of articles of food to large public and private establishments fail to take steps to assure themselves that the nature and quality of the goods supplied to them are what they are represented to be. The sophisticator and adulterator are always with us. The temptations to undersell and to misrepresent seem to be so strong that firms and individuals from whom far better things might reasonably be expected fall away from the right path with deplorable facility, and seek to save themselves, should they by chance be brought to book, by forms of quibbling and wriggling which are in themselves sufficient to show the moral rottenness which can be brought about by an insatiable lust for gain. There is, unfortunately, cheating to be met with at every turn, and it behoves at least those who control the purchase and the cooking of food on the large scale to do what they can to insure the supply to them of articles which have not been tampered with, and which are in all respects of proper quality, both by insisting on being furnished with sufficiently authoritative guarantees by the vendors, and by themselves causing the application of reasonably frequent scientific checks upon the quality of the goods.

In a full blaze of comings and goings, it is unnecessary to remind ourselves that the holiday season is upon us; mass travel to faraway places. The media have for months, all through the winter, been extolling a surfeit of romantic areas of the world, exspecially on television; of colourful scenes, exotic beauties, brilliant sunshine everywhere; travel mostly by air as so‐called package tours — holidays for the masses! The most popular areas are countries of the Mediterranean littoral, from Israel to Spain, North Africa, the Adriatic, but of recent years, much farhter afield, India, South‐east Asia and increasingly to the USA.

At the conference—Working Women: Paths to Power, organized by the Institute of Directors and Working Woman magazine, the Under Secretary of State at the Department of Trade and Industry—John Butcher MP—explained what the Government is doing for women, and described the work shadowing scheme, through which sixth‐form girls have followed top women execu‐tives for a working week.

Legal process by its very nature cannot be swift; step by step, it must be steady and sure and this takes time. There is no room for hasty decisions for these would tend to defeat its purpose. Time, however, is of the essence and this is set for various aspects of legal action by limitation of actions legislation, which sets periods after which the case is no longer actionable. The periods are adequate and in civil law, generous to avoid injustice being done. The one serious complaint against the process of law, however, is the unwarrantable delays which are possible despite limitation. From the far‐off days of Equity, when Dickens' Jarndyce v Jarndyce, caricatured and exaggerated as it was, described the scene down to the present when delays, often spoken of in Court as outrageous are encountered, to say nothing of the crowded lists in the High Courts and Crown Courts; the result of the state of society and not the fault of the judiciary. Early in 1980, it was reported that 14,500 cases were awaiting trial in the Southeastern Circuit Crown Court alone. Outside the Courts legal work hangs on, to the annoyance of those concerned; from house purchase to probate. Here, the solicitor is very much his own master, unhampered by statutory time limits and the only recourse a client has is to change this solicitor, with no certainty that there will be any improvement, or appeal to the Law Society.

The Corporation of the City of London are about to appoint a Public Analyst, and by advertisement have invited applications for the post. It is obviously desirable that the person appointed to this office should not only possess the usual professional qualifications, but that he should be a scientific man of high standing and of good repute, whose name would afford a guarantee of thoroughness and reliability in regard to the work entrusted to him, and whose opinion would carry weight and command respect. Far from being of a nature to attract a man of this stamp, the terms and conditions attaching to the office as set forth in the advertisement above referred to are such that no self‐respecting member of the analytical profession, and most certainly no leading member of it, could possibly accept them. It is simply pitiable that the Corporation of the City of London should offer terms, and make conditions in connection with them, which no scientific analyst could agree to without disgracing himself and degrading his profession. The offer of such terms, in fact, amounts to a gross insult to the whole body of members of that profession, and is excusable only—if excusable at all—on the score of utter ignorance as to the character of the work required to be done, and as to the nature of the qualifications and attainments of the scientific experts who are called upon to do it. In the analytical profession, as in every other profession, there are men who, under the pressure of necessity, are compelled to accept almost any remuneration that they can get, and several of these poorer, and therefore weaker, brethren will, of course, become candidates for the City appointment.