PATER'S CHATS WITH THE BOYS.

Otago Witness, Issue 3293, 25 April 1917, Page 65

PATER'S CHATS WITH THE BOYS.

The United States have thrown in their lot with us, -though I should have preferred to win without their help. President Wilson has spoken of a world-peace, to be enforced by an international force.--But the talk of a'world naval force brings up many questions. In my reading I came across material for the following: A WORLD PARLIAMENT AND AN INTERNATIONAL SEA POLICE.

There was started in America some time ago a "League to Enforce Peace," and one of its ideas is to have a "World's Court League," which would have an International Sea Police, which would confer three outstanding benefits upon the world : "(1) The saving of a great part of the enormous sums necessary now to maintain the present armies and navies, and of the interest on such sums. (2) The saving thus effected should not only be sufficient to pay the interest on the present enormous war debts, but would probably be sufficient to pay a substantial sum towards the reduction of such debts. (3) The elimination of the danger of war would enable the nations to refund their debts at lower rates of interest." But at the outset, William J. Bryan, who is a leading pacifist, lodges four objections to this league's plans: "(1) When we join with other nations to enforce their plan, we join with them in attempting to settle the disputes of the Old World. . . . lam not willing that this nation shfiil put its army and navy at the command of a council, which we cannot control, and thus agree to let foreign nations eay when we shall go to war. (2) If we join with Europe in the enforcement of peace over there, we can hardly refuse to allow Europe to join in the enforcing of p«ace in the Western Hemisphere. (3) The Federal Constitution vests in Congress the right to declare war, and that right cannot be delegated to a council controlled by European nations without changing the Constitution. .(4) When we turn from moral suasion to force .we step down, and not up." ■ I am not quite right in using "quotes,' for I have condensed from Current Opinion for February, but I have in no way misstated the position —the reverse: I have made the points stand out. If these objections stand, on what basis are we to have a World' Parliament to control an International Sea Police? My next note is on the German food supply. THE GERMANIC MANURE HEAP—A DECISIVE WAR FACTOR,

We have heard over and over again of the want in Germany, but though want exists, I have always been sceptical about the privations supposed to have existed, especially •within the first' year or so of the war. In the last 12 months perhaps there have! been shortages of the main food products; but to what extent? There is not much of the surplus of Norway, Sweden, Denmark, and Holland HOW going to Britain, because German submarines have been at work, and Germany's bullying policy has sent most food exports German-wards. Before the war broke out Hungary produced ■ immense quantities of wheat—Budapest is the home of the roller-mill —and countless cattle; and now, because of the blockade, former Hungarian exports are available for home consumption. Up to the war, too, tens of thousands of Russians and Italians—the former mostly—went to Germany as harvesters, but since the war these harvesters have, stopped home; and this ia given as a reason for short harvest.! in Germany. But those who reason thM there is a shortage of harvest labour in Germany forget' that there are about 3,000,000 of prisoners whose labour can be commandeered. But allowing for all this, there must be a shortage now that the blockade has been tightened, and for one reason there is a shortage of manure, real or artificial. German soil, taken as a whole, is poor, and good yields are the result of scientific farming. Nothing is wasted. Economy in food means less waste, and what was given to cattle before is now largely used for human food, and the absence of artificial manures, of which tens of thousands of tons were imported yearly, though not meaning a very appreciable difference in 1916—the 1915 harvest was in the ground or the manure in store for the ploughing.—the harvest was not so good as in 1915 ; but no manure a second year on a poor soil means that the coming summer and autumn crops must bo short. How much?

A hard question to answer; but we may get at it sufficiently to indicate that things will be very bad if the war goes on until Christmas.

Germany, roughly speaking, grows enough to" feed 80 per cent, of her population/ To put this another way: Germany must import food for a fifth of her population, -which is fully 65,000,C00, so that food must . bo imported yearly for 13,000,000. This is on the supposition, however, that there is a normal harvest. But -we know that there cannot be unless a greater acreage has been put down than formerly, and this has' been deemed impossible, in spite of there being so much what we might call prison labour available.

How much has this normal been reduced? Professor A. R. Marsh, "who ranks as one of the greatest living economists," is quoted in Current Opinion for February as saying: "It is not going too far to say that the cutting off of Germany's imports of actual and potential manures ha 3 had the practical effect of reducing by at least one-third the quantity of effective manurial elements available for German industry. . . ." But this

is not all. Want of manure reduces crops, which in turn reduces natural manure, because of less wastage, and, as I have said, more of the products of the soil are being used as human food. There is, however, another factor to consider. Eye and sugar have been produced in sufficient quantities, but other grains have been short not only 20 per cent., but up to 100 per cent. Rice is a large article of food, and is wholly imported ; and so are coffee, cocoa, and tea; and the same applies almost to the same degree to edible fats and maize, and to a smaller extent to many other necessaries. For instance, Germany before the war imported annually about 1,150,000 tons of maize, 1,200,000 tons of herrings (of which 640.000 tons came from Britain), 165,000 tons of eggs (of which Russia supplied over 60,000 tons), and 8,600,000 geese, Russia again supplying a large quantity, some 7,400,000, of the'-total. Taking these and other figures, Professor Marsh says: "The only conclusion possible for the disinterested student outside of Germany is that the supply of food which Germany has at her command is far below the minimum requirements of the population from now until the next crop. If this is not the case, it can only be said that the agricultural miracle of all time has been achieved."