A LAND OF PLENTY.

Taranaki Herald, Volume LXVII, Issue 16462, 14 June 1919, Page 9

A LAND OF PLENTY.

GERMANY’S ROOD CAMOUFLAGE. WHAT THE AMERICANS FOUND. Tn nil iiuerestinp; article in the Saturday Evening Lost, Mr. (Uioxge Uatiuio desciiiies the march ol the Thin! American Army into Germany in the ju'ighboiirhouii ol’ Troves. It was amazing lo the men, he declares, to discover a hind of ihcnty, instead of a land of desolation and starvation. “There wore swarms of weili'od little Heines/’ ho says in ono i place. Incidentally, Mr. ihntulo was j struck by the obvious eiioi t ol the ;■ population, apparently under iustruc- ; lions, lo placate the Americans. and ; to sow dissension among the A Hies by ? the drafting of invidious distinctions. . It was Sunday, writes Mr. Pattulo, in ; the course of ihe article. Children, • children everywhere—the village was a : perfect hive. i it wasn't long before curiosity mas- ] tored caution. In no time ai all the j doughboys were on friendly terms with ■ the kiddies. Before that day was out | German children were toddling beside > our soldiers, pressing apples into their , hands and asking questions in queer, | guttural sounds. Children are the same ; the world over, and the doughboy knows no national lines below the lighting age. Never in my life have I seen so many children as in Germany. 'I hey fairly swarm —fat, lusty ra.scn Is too. There is an old superstition that a preponderance of boy babies presages tear; boys of five to eight years seem to be greatly in tiro majority. German man power Jins been liit hard, but here, me plenty oi prospective repiaeemenns, “Looks like they'd have plenty of machine-gunners ten years Irom now," remarkeU an oiiicer, thinking ol the Argonne. We met the inhabitants of several small towns coming from church. A large number of them were in black; Uie others were dressed soberly, in clothes of excellent material. lint the styles' Perhaps they would have made a hit in grandpa's day, but they looked weird lo American eyes. Our own men were short of siloes. Hundreds of them were practically on the ground ; thousands wore footwear that did not lit. So it was no wonder that they gaped at the German feet. Hadn’t we been told by our able propagandists that leather could not be had in Germany:' Hadn’t that been ono of their most consoling assurances i" Yet hero were German peasants wearing good sound slices that looked almost new —shoes of leather. Even the kiddies had them. BEEFY FIG VUES. Another aspect struck them immediatrlv. Wiiere were the enuudated, starvi ing'inhabitants:" These people appear.cd well nourished. We encountered lots i ol men of beefy figure; the eiders were : invariably of nehle rotundity ami many : of the poungslers looked like butler balls. Our soldiers saw these things ami their wonder glow. It is still growing. All our expectations harts been upset, demolished. “Say,” said an ai tilleryman, Ins eye roving over the landscape, *'l never seen a liner country. And it seemed untouched by war. That hit ns hardest. For all a visitor cay discern in footing it through the Khinehnul provinces there might

never have been a world couhict. AVe missed the familiar sight of cuttie, however. 'I Jse turmcrs were working ill few cows to the plough and in waggons, and we paused a score of exen in three days, hut there were no fiords. Mocks of sheep grazed the pasture lands; there- was grunting in the vil- i luges; but on the whole live-stock! seemed very scarce. The Germans did , not appear to possess so ninny horses for j civilian use as had the French. We were i told that both horses and cuttle Void | been requisitioned for military needs. | As I wild before, this portion of (!<>r- \ many looked untouched by the war. A et j an army of two hundred and fifty thuu- | .sand had retreated along these same | roads only a few days before. They had j retired in excellent order and with fine j discipline. AVhatevor reports were sent out to tlie contrary we know absolutely | that the Boohc military machine worked j with precision to the last. “WE WILL COME HACK.” ( Sonic of our men saw the rearguard I of Mindenhurg’s forces moving along the ; opposite river hank. They marched as ; to a Festival, singing anil hurrahing, and every group was bedecked. Their pan- ; ing assurances to Coblenz just, before \ crossing the Rhino were: “The war’s, over, .In! But wo will enme hack. It may he five—ten—twenty years; hut 1 wc will come back.’’ i The contrast'hot ween this seeming-I ly strong, unscathed (lennany and 1 the devastated regions of France was ; so bewildering that it left our men ; dazed. What if the Germans had been I forced to endure four years of strug- j glo on their own territory? I That is the 7 impression of Germany) this man’s tinny has received. The mili- j tary outloo’k was hopeless and. they ! lacked some of the sinews of war, so I

they behaved like shrewd traders and cut their losses. CHEAP MEAT. Un petit moment! Let us take a squint at the food situation while wo are about it. it would bo manifestly improper To judge of the state of Germany’s food supply by only apportion of the country, and that portion ono of. the richest. However, from what tin’s army lias seen it will bear reports of privation ami want with its tongue in its cheek. Mais out. Every wail of that description will fall on deaf oars. For there, has been plenty of food wherever we have gone. ’The bread lias been dark and rather soggy, but not a whit more so than Boston In-own broad. The Bodies were rationed on meat and sugar and potatoes, and nearly everything else—but what belligerent was not!" And the people certainly look well fed. They tell ns that food of every description could always be had in excess of the ration for a little money. They explained that all the cattle.had been requisitioned; but I bought at (Schweicb for an officers’ mess eleven wounds of good beef for leu marks—and the mark is worth less than fourteen cents now. We had an excellently cook-

od dinner at tin- host- hotel in Troves, consisting of potato soup, thick juicy steak, potatoes, cahhage, pie. SehraierUase and coffee for six marks—less than

ninety cents in American money. NO LUNCH OF MUNOER. A druggist in Sehweieh informed me that they had not suffered during the war. Fat'h family had to cut down on certain kinds of food, and toasted hurley was issued as a substitute for coffee, but never did they feel the pinch of lumper. Since the armistice the reserve stocks of coffee, hoarded for military j use, have been released. i ■Tn the large cities and the industrial centre's it was different,” he declared. ‘‘There they went hungry.” No matter where wo wont it was the same—no lack of the necessaries of life. Always the food shortage was farther on or somewhere else. I ha ve grown dubious of that ‘‘some-1 p’hore else,” because none of ns have ever been able to locate the place in Europe. V.’e heard in America grim tales of starving Franco, and on getting over there found out that we could obtain a square meal cheaply, anywhere in France. Consetpiently, they will have to show this army before it credits the I famine tales. So much hunk is fed the public in the form of propaganda that the soldiers have learned to believe what they see with their own eyes, and not what is handed out to them. TRYING TO SPLIT THE ALLIES. This desire to propitiate crops out in all their conversation and in their newsThey persistently drew comparisons between the mildness of American occupation and that of our Allies; they keel) harping upon their relief that American Loop.-, are in their area, instead of English or French, (t is all j done designedly, with a fixed purpose. j They have expectations of being fed I by the United States; but there is :m- ---! other motive also—to split the Allies. I The Cohlenner Zoitung of December ! ' drew a sharp distinction between the | Allied Armies and those or the United | Slates. It was probably done under orders, in one column the paper published dispatches from Dussehlorf, Cologne, .Lmwigshafen, and other points describing the harsh terms inilietod upon the civilian population by the Belgians, English and French. One item told of how the assistant, chief of the commission that has to do with turning over the railroads was slopped by Belgian soldiers, beaten up and despoiled of Ins insignia of rank, though provided with a puss from the Armistice Commission.

NORMAL CIA’ILIAN LIFE. Civilian life is proceeding normally in the territory held by our troops. Trains are running on schedule. Barges and tugs and passenger boats ply, up and down (he rivers as though there had never been a. war. I saw three crews of oarsmen rowing on the Rhine to-day, nattily rigged out in sweaters and knee pants as though taking part in a regatta. The shops are all open and doing a thriving trade. Their stocks appear to he about the same as what would he found in places of similar size at home, and the goods look fresh and well made.