THE New Zealand Herald AND DAILY SOUTHERN CROSS FRIDAY, AUGUST 17. 1917. GERMANY'S FOOD PROBLEM.

New Zealand Herald, Volume LIV, Issue 16620, 17 August 1917, Page 4

THE New Zealand Herald AND DAILY SOUTHERN CROSS FRIDAY, AUGUST 17. 1917. GERMANY'S FOOD PROBLEM.

The food problem is common to most of the belligerents and to many neutrals, but it is unquestionably most pressing in Central Europe. There has been a popular tendency to exaggerate the difficulties encountered by Germany and Austria in finding sufficient food to keep their armies in the field and their populations quiescent, and it has never been suggested by Allied authorities that the end of the war may bo directly'caused by the actual starvation of the enemy. On the other hand all accounts agree that the Allied blockade is very severely felt by the Central Powers, and it must be recognised that this economic pressure is a factor which military commanders cannot ignore. Many commentators upon the Napoleonic wars agree that the Corsican was overthrown, not so much by the Russians in 1812, or by the Allies at Leipsic in 1813, or by the Allies before Paris in 1814, or by Wellington at Waterloo in 1815, as by the economical stringency imposed on the countries which he ruled. To counteract the blockade effected by the British fleet Napoleon instituted what he was pleased to name the Continental System, by which he hoped to turn the tables economically on Britain. If the countries which he ruled were to be prevented from trading with the world outside Europe, Britain should be prevented from trading with the countries which he controlled.

The commercial ruin of Britain was the intention of the Continental System, but its effe-ct wag exactly the opposite. Instead of crippling Britain, who had all the markets of the world at her disposal, it merely increased 'lie hardships of the Napoleon-ruled countries. Unable to export across the seas the products of their own industry they were by the System prevented from importing from across sea products which they could not produce themselves, but which they might have obtained by way of Britain. "The irrational decree*," says De Bourrieune, " acted most powerfully against the Emperor, by exciting the population of entire countries against him. Twenty kings hurled from their thrones would have drawn upon him far less of deadly enmity than this disregard of the people's wants. ... It would require the reader to have been a spectator, as I was, of the vexations and miseries caused by the deplorable Continental System, to conceive the mischief its authors inflicted upon Europe, or what hate and vengeance it amassed against Napoleon's day of retribution.'-'

Some analogy is to be found between the fiscal conditions existing during the Napoleonic war and those of to-day. The great difference is that the strictures imposed to-day upon Britain's enemies are 1 infinitely greater than a hundred years ago. Germany does not reply to the Allied blockade with a counterpart of Napoleon s Continental System, but by means of ruthless submarine warfare. The results of retaliation, however, are similar, if intensified. Neutral trade is almost at a standstill, so that there are few imports to or exports from Germany, while the western Allies trade still with all the world. As the Continental System turned all Europe against Napoleon, so the policy of ruthless submarining has turned all the world against the Kaiser. Internally the state of the Central Powers is much worse than anything endured by France in Napoleon's time. Germany and Austria may not be actually starving, but they certainly are very short of food, and of nitrogenous foods they are in actual want. Unable to use the seas and greatly restricted in obtaining food and material through neutral countries, they attempted by the nmrderous submarine campaign to place Britain in a similar predicament. Although they undoubtedly created a food problem in Britain they failed to achieve their purpose, and actually increased their own difficulties. They have possibly gained more by their raid into Roumania, but it would seem that great shortage of food exists even with the gathering of the harvest. In mid-winter and during the following spring the German food problem should become acute.