GERMANY'S HUNGER

Dominion, Volume 11, Issue 80, 28 December 1917, Page 8

GERMANY'S HUNGER

THE FACTS OF THE CASE CIVILIANS STARVE THAT , ARMIES MAY LIVE "Dutch people vho have returned from Germany say that the food is no longer fit to eat, and is more suitable for pigs. The ' middle-class people are the most ■ starved. 'The "mortality among children and the aged is rising alarmingly. Whole families of the famine-stricken are slowly going under."—Cablegram from Amsterdam. , The reports th,at reach tho outside world regarding the food supply of the German nation are many and contra- i dictory. The political leaders of Ger- ' many speak with two voices on the subject. They say, first, that the Bri-. tish blockado is a mere devico for cap-.

Turing trade, and that Germany cam never bo starved into and then tliey protest against the- "inhn,manity" of the blockade, which "mean a starvation to tho women and children./' They announce periodically that t'ho shortage of food in Germany has btieia ended, by a good harvest, by the c ajjtnre of Rumanian wheat, by the resumption of trade with Russia; aud then they call for new food econoi anies .and for the meek consumption by ■'■ the German civilian of unpleasant, t! jings that in happier days were reserve- i for the destructor or the manure wor' ks. Contradictory statements. ,' Some time ago the German Chancellor, in one of his angfy spe .leches, declaimed bitterly against the c bnduct of tho British Government. / "England," he said, "wants to victin jise the women and children, the old, ag £d, and sick pi a nation numbering 'seventy million people, in order to foroc i it into. submission. It is England wl:io, from the beginning, wanted to muhe this war, not a war, of army againsU army, but a war of nation against r lation." But it appeared a little later i Jiat the same Chancellor did not iolij'sc t to the war of nation ■ against nation, since he said:— . • • i

"While our soldiers at I fhe front stand -under the drum-ft re in the trenches and our submariiios, defying death, hasten through the. seas; whilst we at liome have absolut lely no other task but to produce canr jcn, ammunition, and food, and distribute victuals with justice; in the midst lof this strug. ,gle for life and the futui Je of our Empire, intensified to the c there is only one necessity of ■ bho day which dominates all questions c If policy, both foreign and internal—to fight and to gain thn victory." • . ' If the Germans at horrie "have absolutely no other_ task but to prodiK>3 cannon, ammunition! an id! food," pFiBumablv in tfiis order .of importance, .then the blockade obvioAis Iy is a military measure, aimed at /people who are doing vital war work. | i

How Hungjryi • The exact measure/ c'f Germany's starvation is hard to lean i. Probably the German nation /is . i nore hungry than it admits, but root < [uite as hungry as some optimistic pc :ople in Britain and elsewhere have sb ated it to be. But whatever the nrieasu ,, ! 5 of the starvation, it is due 1 r,ot so ' much to a shortage of available fooi Istulfs as to the complete suboirdinatio n of civilian needs to the requirements -. of the ■ German war machine. Th is point is .dealt with pjainly in one iof the official pamphlets issued, with th| 5 sanction of the War Office./ The AKmy has the first call on tlie German railways. Enormous quaiytities of m, unitions and supplies are nvived contini iously to the various fronts, great masses of troops are flung frbiii front to f; ront, as the War Lords .way, and the food supply •of the civilian population must wait. "There may be corn in Hungary, there may be petrol in -Galicia,, large stocks of' food may have been, captured at Bucharest, but men aro starving in Hamburg. How much ; miore convenient would it be if the i'Port of Hamburg were open, if thi'j ships could come from all -the world and deliver their supplies at Hamburg and Stettin and Danzig, and so feed the population of Berlin; if tJ iere were free intercourse from Rotterdam to Cologne and the foodstuffs .of ; the Argentine could come • without hindrance to the workshops of Essen 1 Then, indeed, the German nation, w /ithout concern for the necessary daily) bread, would be J able to concentrate j itself to tho single purpose of the J production of cannon and high explosives. An admirable doctrine 1 '

"But this is not (possible. Tho English are stony-hearted; they wish to limit the output of machine-guns and flammenwerfer; tlwy wish to save their soldiers from lilie death which comes to them in (icmntless forms. They establish a blockade: food becomes short, materials! for making explosives are deficient; some one must go withoutr—who shsill it be? -It cannot be the soldiers; j.vho are starved, nor will it be the! camion which go without their food. ! 'Perish rather the ,young and the old,! lifted women, and helpless children. 'Milk at least, pno would have thought j, was still produced in Germany; there ioie the'broad_ fields and there are the' cattle: this is tho staff of life for the) very young, But milk, too, can be Hised for the'manufacture of cxplosiv es ; and if the babies go 'without their food, it is not that tho import of.millc into the country is checked,- it is because the weak and helpless are sacrificed.to the German Army. \ j ; '

Enough Acres, but riot Enough Labour. "The extent of i erritory over which the Central Power!: now hold sway is,' for the purpose of food' supply, practically self-sufficing;; .they can produce sufficient to maintj .in the population in health, if not in Luxury. If Central Europe wore completely shut out from the rest of the w< irld iu time of peace there would doubt' less be a considerable reduction in the ( ' standard of living, •which, as we km nv, has' risen in Germany greatly in t' he last thirty or forty years, but therd would not be anything in the nature of serious want or distress; the "■ amount of food available would probi ihly be, on the average, not less th! an would be requisite to provide for ie standard of comfort equal to that \\f hioh in Germany fifty or sij? ty years ago; i.e., supposing Germany were at peace. But Germany is not, .at peace; millions of the able-bodied : men of the country are occupied in fighting,on the frontier, millions more aj e occupied in minister, ing to the matej rial requirements of the Army. 'What iu wanted is not so much the land and tho resources sufficient for feeding ithie population, , but the labour which is required for this purr pose. If Gerriimny is starving it is rot tho blockade of, the Allies that is .the sole cause of the starvation; it is the drain on the (Country by the necessity of maintaining 1 the armies in the field.'' Some month's ago there was an article in tho "Continental Times" by Carl von Wiejnnd, tho former Bprlm correspondent 'of the New York "World." Tlv j article contained tho following statement: — "If the war l should continue very long, and thei point of real suffering he reached wit.hin the Central Emnircs, it t#ll not be tho men.in the field who will feel it—ijverything will be sacrificed for them.-Vbiit it will be the noncombatants at 'homo, more especially the babies aiid , children of tho poor."