The Press Thursday, March 13, 1919. Food or Bolshevism ?

Press, Volume LV, Issue 16470, 13 March 1919, Page 6

The Press Thursday, March 13, 1919. Food or Bolshevism ?

If the food conditions in Germany are as bad as is indicated in to-day's cables the danger of the whole country being forced into the cljaos of Bolshevist misrule is undoubted- A hungry man is naturaljy a discontented man. If a man is continually hungry for month after month, he is apt to think that any change from the conditions under which he starves must bo for the better, and in that frame of mind he becomes the willing tool of tlio forces of revolt and anarchy. Whatever motives may inspire the loaders of such a movojnent the support it gains from the multitude is the outcomo of dissatisfaction with the existing order. That is the position in Germany to-day, and that is why the Entente Powers are now said to have accepted the American view that Bolshevism in that country can be killed only by food. There has been considerable difference of opinion, even among correspondents who havo accompanied the army of occupation as to the exact position of affairs regarding Germany's food supply. It $ocms undoubted that immc- * diately after the armistice was signed rostaurants and provision shops were abjo to make a fine show of foods of all sorts, and the residents seemod to bp well rationed, and gavo much less indication of having been underfed than would have been noticed in Lonc don. Correspondents who reached Trcvos and Coblenz saw food being used lavishly, even waste fully, and enjoyed meals such as would have been unobtainable in England, at prices which certainly were not extortionate. A member of the Allied Naval Commission in German waters, after a tour of a vory considerable area, of Northwestern Germany, came to the conclusion that if conditions, in the rest of the country were not much worse than in the parts he had soen tliero was certainly no need for haste on the part of the Allies in going to their relief. None of tho numerous members of the sub-commission, "who covered "many hundreds of miles of country, " and saw tens of thousands of the "peoplo at close range, reported hav- " ing noticed any ovidence of palpable " underfeeding. . . . The results | "pf a really bountiful harvest aro j "seen in bulging barns and sheds, "plethoric hay stacks, and fodder "piles."

fho conditions elsewhere, however, must be very much worse, though they were 6p disguised tha& even an acute

observer like Mr Philip Gibbs was misled at first, and wrote of the good meals to be obtained in Germany, the abundance of meat, and the absence of tho hunger-look in the faces of middleclass crowds which thronged to see the Allied troops marching in. But after ho had had time to examine deeper, he found very different conditions:—

"All this (tho show of plenty) is superficial, duo partly to the gross inequality of conditions" betwoen rich and poor, and partly to the proud camouflage of misory, while beneath the surface of this show there is hideous stinting and scraping of the barest necessities of life, with the hungerwolf ?it the door of many small houses and in some quarters where workingwomen live half-starvation, which drains them of vitality. The camouflage of life's luxuries has been cleverly dono by the Germans, but, like camouflage in war, it is all a sham. The word 'Ersatz,' or substitute, covers a multitude of chemical products whicn. seem 'just as .good' as the real article, but do not 'stay tho stomach,' as the old housewives used to say. Tho rich middle-classes can buv good food at high prices, evading the food regulations, so long as they have money to pay, but the working-women and" the poorer middle-class of professional people have to abide by their ration cards, and, as a Frenchwoman told mo of her own TKvrple in the war zone, tret too much for death, but not enough for life. I think that is the truth of things.''

In tho middle of December the ration of potatoes had been reduced from 71b per head per week to half that quantity—and that half-pound of potatoes, with half a pound of war bread, was the largest part of tho day's food. The woekly allowance of meat consisted of about nine ounces, weighed with the bone, and of butter barely two ounces. Such a dietary scale may support Tife, But it cannot make it endurable. Its continuance, besides affording a forcing-ground for all manner of political and economic troubles, would broed famine and disease, and though it soems preposterous that after the Allies and America have had to spend more than a hundred millions sterling in four yoars to keep alive the victims of Gorman oppression in Belgium and Northern France, they should now havo to spend many more millions in feeding tho Germans, feelings of humanity and purposes of policy combino to make that action unavoidable.