WHY GERMANY MUST STARVE

Dominion, Volume 10, Issue 3056, 18 April 1917, Page 8

WHY GERMANY MUST STARVE

ECONOMIST'S REASONS FOR "PEACE . -BEFORE SUMMER." HUNGER BEHIND THE PEACE OFFER Mr. Arthur Richmond Marsh, editor of the "Economic 'World" and one of the leading economic experts in the United States, decjares that Germany's peace proposals were prompted by-the knowledge that her food supply is inadequate to* feed the population until the 1917 harvest, and that; regardless of possible military developments, she must have peace before the summer. Mr. Marsh, who las been both president and vice-president of the New York Cotton Exchange, embodies the outcome of his long and careful .research into economic conditions within the German Empire in a remarkable signed article which appears in the New York "World."

German agriculture before the war was able to produce 80 per cent, of the normal food requirements of the German population. "With all its admitted efficiency that was the best that'i German agriculture could do in time of peace; and if by reason of the circumstances of the war the diminution has-been great enough—say, to 50 per cent, of the normal consumption—then the 'German food supply is now absolutely inadequate, ar.d will not suffice to take the country through to another crop. Germany has consistently enriched her not too fertile soil by far more extensive importations of actual and potential manures than have been made by any other country in the world. The outstanding' fact of the existing situation is that for more than two years Germany has been .unable to import these manure?. Her crons in 1915 undoubtedly suffered severely fromi the lack of them, and it would seem to be a foregone conclusion that the crops,of 1916 must have suffered still more' seriously. •

In an- address which lie delivered in August last, Dr. Karl Helfferieh drew a comparison between Germany's farm products in the vears 1883-87 and those of the years 1909-12. He pointed out that between the former and the latter years the cultivated strea in Germany increased only 5$ per cent., while the total aericnltural production increased by 87.7 per cent., making ■ the average gain of , production tier hectare or other unit of, area no less than 77.7 per cenj;. Perhaps even more striking is the fact that the increase of production was- progressive and continued unabated down to the very beginning of 'the war. The sequences of figures he quoted in. themselves show very clearly to what an extent the German soil was being "crowded" by incessant 1 heavy manuring just before the war in order to keep the country's, total agricultural production up to 80 per cent, of the fodd requirements of the population. Thait the effects of the enforced intermission'of this heavy manuring must have' been proportionately great in the way of diminishing the production would"-seem to be'self-evidsnt, at least to every person familiar with the theory .and practice of intensive agriculture.' , ~ It is rtot going too iar to say that the cutting off of Germany's imports of actual (tr potential manures has had the practical effect of reducing by at least one-tWd, if not one-balf, -the quantity of ieffective manurial elements available for 1 . German v husbandry. This is.certainly serious enough; yet, even so, the story is not v quite all told. The food expedients necessitated by the war have resulted in still other reductions in the quantities of foods and fodders available ' for animals, and hence in .the amount of farm manure produced. The stoppage of the imports of wheat has compelled the use of nearly the whole wheat kernel in the manufacture of flour for war bread, and lias thus greatly diminished the domestic production of bran. The provision of war bread has also made necessary a decrease of some 60 per cent, in the production of beer, with a resultant loss perhaps of 1,000,000 metric tons of malt sprouts formerly fed to cattle.

From every direction, therefore, Germany's national manure pile lias been attacked; and yet it was principally by reason of tliis manure pile that her farmers wore able before the war to produce so much as 80 per cent, of the food requirements of the population. A' reduction of one-tliird i in the grain crops and of two-fifths in the potato crop, combined with a reduction of fuilv one-half in the' production of milk, butter, and meat by reason of lack of feeds and fodders for animals, can mean nothing else than that Germany's food simply, restricted now almost exclusively to domestic production, is a hare 50 per cent., or even less, of the normal requirements.