BIG CRASH COMING.

Stratford Evening Post, Volume XXXIII, Issue 13, 13 April 1917, Page 3

BIG CRASH COMING.

STARVATION IN GERMANY. During my 14 months’ residence in Germany (says P. M. van der Klei, in the New York “Sun”), I often pondered over the stubborn German spirit of perseverance. Among the Germans themselves this it attributed to their patriotism. Beyond doubt or question they are patriotic. They are putting up with adversities that no other nation under the sun could 01 would tolerate. •' As a Hollander I can say that my people could not have stood the privations that the German people are standing. : While in Berlin I had many conversations with other neutrals, and in every ease I heard the frank testimony of these men that no other nation would have held out so long. Germany •' will hold out until |slie cracks 'And crumbles. She is bracking; watch for the crash ! The German Government will again ask for peace. Germany will attempt to secure peace even if she has to sacrifice every inch of her Allies’ territory. .She has very little use for AustriaHungary ; she has contempt for the Bulgars; I have not heard one good word for the Turks or their Government. The Germans are always bitterly complaining that Hungary is holding back her foodstuffs from the rest of her allies. Germany is for Germany. Germany is suffering from food shortage, hut the ! shortage of fat will be‘the deciding factor in Gei> many’s defeat. •

I 'havedieen; repeatedly asked- if I could positively state that Germany lias not enough food to continue another six'months or so. All 1 can say is that the German people at large artsuffering terrible agonies because of the food shortage. If the German Government has plenty of .food and is holding it, hack from the people foil'll tore use, .that Ido not know, I am an able-bodied man of 27 years. During my entire 14 months of residence- in .Germany, .I worked 12 full months and two wbeks. I received 40 ■per cent, more wages''than toy trade vepeived l»r .week during the pre-war days; ’ I had not one person depending upon Iny weekly income; I spent it all on myself. I very seldom take ajglass of beer, and am a moderate smoker. Yet I never had enough to eat.

Without being ill during my whole residence ,jn Germany I lost 221b' in weight-; i rijjd. J lost it gradually. 1 deft Germany because I was starving. 1 have read the reports of the “new ; trail''Journalists,” telling how Germany has plenty of food. I will say this much, that f l-,> neutral journalists living in a high-class Berlin hotel can procure all the rood lie can eat. But the “neutral journalist” dare ndt leave his -hotel and .make a journey to .the interior of Berlin on a 48-hour venture. .He would starve. Early ..ju February, 1916, one of the-writers on the . . “Yorwaerts” made an inventory of the weight of its entire staff. There, was an average of 18 per cent, loss in weigh Germany is starving. Even in‘'spite of “neutral journalists’ ” rer. ports to thecontrary j the German people are getting thin, and they are getting thin because' they have not enough to eat.

Until six months ago the ration- oh the German soldiers had not been reduced. Until six months ago, in spite of the starvation St home; the German soldier received good food, and plenty of it. Ahqnt a year ago the, Kaiser was alleged trf have proclaimed that his soldierly, jpfd sailors must have everything M-tv j But since six months even the ration has been reduced. 'iCFji'inting of the item announcing thii>;feis not allowed in the “Yorwaerts” by the censor.

Shortly after reaching Berlin I had many applicants for my good olliccs by middle-class and well-to-do parents to secure . hoard for their children in Holland with good families. I municated with more than 50 Holland families, and secured hoard in Holland for nearly 120 German children and 75 women. Thousands of German women and children are being sent to ■Sweden, Denmark, Holland, and Switzerland. i T state on the authority of the wellinformed VVonvaerts”. editors that i during the last nine months more than, S 100,000 German women and children have been sent out of the country to, save thetiV 1 from starvation. Within, the. next three months this numberj will surely lie doubled. Xiio neutral countries bordering on Germany are , already feeling the shortage of food to their own peoples as a result of this wholesale emigration of women and children from Germany. The German Government is in full approval of this course, it is even encouraging it 1 systematically. .... ,