No sooner had control had been abolished than the prices of vegetables soared from 5 to 15 times the official prices. Radishes are selling at from ¥15 to ¥14 per kwan. Stone-leeks at ¥25 per kwan, and so on. (One kwan is 3.75 kilograms).

These are the prices of the central wholesale market. When the control association's fee of five per cent and retailers' profit of 30 per cent are added, radishes cost from ¥15 to ¥20 per kwan. One has to pay ¥4 or ¥5 for a small radish.

This is grave panic to the kitchen. Some households, unable to pay the price, declined to accept a long-awaited supply. The grocer said he would exclude them from future supplies. A squabble arose among the households concerned, the neighborhood association, and the grocer.

With the return of free sale, there seems to have been some increase in deliveries on the market, but only the moneyed class can buy. The ordinary masses cannot afford to.

What will the Agricultural authorities do? They are the ones who removed the control.

Someone got a 15 days ration of rice from a Foodstuff Corporation distribution station. He checked the weight and discovered a shortage equaling one day's ration. He complained to the distribution station. The complaint was turned down.

At the rate of a one-day ration per person 1,500 bales of rice can be withheld from the total ration for Tokyo for one day, it is said. The pitifully meager ration of 2.1 "go" or 300 grams is thus illicitly slashed to fatten the officials of distribution stations.

Who made these distribution stations and who controls them? Of course, the Agriculture authorities.

The Shidehara Cabinet gave its pledge to keep up the basic ration of 2.1 "go" of rice and barley, exclusive of potatoes, beans and mixed flour. This is all right as far as it goes, but we cannot live on the 2.1 "go" ration. To avoid malnutrition, we must have a minimum ration of three "go" by all means.

There must have been a good deal of rice held in stock by the army at the time of the war termination. Quite a lot of rice is being sold clandestinely at an exorbitant price, ¥60 or ¥70 per shop. Why is it not possible to collect all this rice and distribute it equally among the masses?

Owing to the coal famine, gas is supplied only in the morning. There is no supply of charcoal. Fuel wood is hard to get. Electricity is over-abundant, but there are no heaters. We must eat uncooked rice.

The Government pleads lack of labor for coal-mining. There is a flood of the unemployed on all hands. Why is it that steps were not taken immediately after the end of the war to mobilize the jobless to replace Korean and Chinese coal-miners? The Welfare authorities were negligent.

It is the wife who, with an empty rice-box before her, is worried to death day in and day out about what to giver her husband and children to eat. The husband is always served and sometimes partakes of even the wife's portion and so he can hardly understand his wife's worry. It is the wife to whom the incompetence and negligence of the authorities are brought home.

The relation between government and the kitchen must be grasped. The newly acquired right of women to participate in government must be exercised and drive home the relation between government and the sustenance of people. Then, and only then, will the problems of livelihood be taken up in earnest and ways found for their solution.

Ichikawa, Fusae. "Panic in the Kitchen: Women's Interest Centered On Daily Necessities," Nippon Times, February 17, 1946.