DURANT BACKS NEW FOOD CUT

"The Harvard Dining Halls are under a moral obligation since the new flat rate was adopted last spring not to raise the board rate until June", Aldrich Durant, Business Manager, said yesterday. Thus, despite the fact that they have suffered a deficit of $130,000 in the last twelve months, the Dining Halls are in no position to increase the weekly cost of meals unless "the students themselves take up the matter through the Student Council", he explained.

There is little chance, according to Durant, that the new regulation adopted Monday, charging all students extra for additions to the menu, will be sufficient to keep the Dining Halls from running further into the red. The move has been adopted only as a temporary expediency to tide them over until June, when a more satisfactory arrangement will probably be concluded.

Present Food Sufficient

Despite the reduction in the food supplied without extra charge to diners at the Freshman Union and the House Halls, "all dietary authorities agree that the food supplied at Harvard is entirely adequate", said Durant. "I have heard of no exceptions which might be made to the rule prohibiting free second orders", he added.

In the case of milk, he explained, all students now who order it at every meal receive over a quart a day including what goes into the cooking, an amount more than sufficient for any normal human being, and most animals.

"The Dining Halls are primarily concerned with supplying adequate food to all students at the lowest price", Durant stated, indicating that the new regulation recently adopted is at present the best solution that can be made according to this policy to the problem raised by rising food prices.

Present Plan Best

When alternative plans for meeting the mounting deficit in the Dining Halls were suggested. Durant showed that none of them were as satisfactory as the present arrangement. Many students have balanced their whole budget on the assumption that the University meant what it said when it instituted the $8.50 flat rate last June.

Consequently, the weekly charge which has been in effect so far will continue until June, unless the students actively petition a new rate through the agency of the Student Council and can receive their parents' backing for the adjustment