Part 10 (1/2)

CHAPTER VII

THE BUBBLING ECONOMIC VOLCANO

When I entered Germany in 1915 there was plenty of food everywhere and prices were normal. But a year later the situation had changed so that the number of food cards--Germany's economic barometer--had increased eight times. March and April of 1916 were the worst months in the year and a great many people had difficulty in getting enough food to eat.

There was growing dissatisfaction with the way the Government was handling the food problem but the people's hope was centred upon the next harvest. In April and May the submarine issue and the American crisis turned public attention from food to politics. From July to October the Somme battles kept the people's minds centred upon military operations. While the scarcity of food became greater the Government, through inspired articles in the press, informed the people that the harvest was so big that there would be no more food difficulties.

Germany began to pay serious attention to the food situation, when early in the year, Adolph von Batocki, the president of East Prussia and a big land owner, was made food dictator. At the same time there were organised various government food departments. There was an Imperial Bureau for collecting fats; another to take charge of the meat supply; another to control the milk and another in charge of the vegetables and fruit. Germany became practically a socialistic state and in this way the Government kept abreast of the growth of Socialism among the people. The most important step the Government took was to organise the Zentral Einkaufgesellschaft, popularly known as the ”Z. E.

G.” The first object of this organisation was to purchase food in neutral countries. Previously German merchants had been going to Holland, Switzerland and the Scandinavian countries to buy supplies.

These merchants had been bidding against each other in order to get products for their concerns. In this way food was made much more expensive than it would have been had one purchaser gone outside of Germany. So the Government prohibited all firms from buying food abroad. Travelling agents of the ”Z. E. G.” went to these countries and bought all of the supplies available at a fixed price. Then these resold to German dealers at cost.

Such drastic measures were necessitated by the public demand that every one share alike. The Government found it extremely difficult to control the food. Farmers and rich landowners insisted upon slaughtering their own pigs for their own use. They insisted upon eating the eggs their chickens laid, or, upon sending them through the mail to friends at high prices, thereby evading the egg card regulations. But the Government stepped in and farmers were prohibited from killing their own cattle and from sending foods to friends and special customers. Farmers had to sell everything to the ”Z. E. G.”

That was another result of State Socialism.

The optimistic statements of Herr von Batocki about the food outlook led the people to believe that by fall conditions would be greatly improved but instead of becoming more plentiful food supplies became more and more organised until all food was upon an absolute ration basis.

”Although the crops were good this year, there will be so much organisation that food will spoil,” said practically every German.

Batocki's method of confiscating food did cause a great deal to spoil and the public blamed him any time anything disappeared from the market. One day a carload of plums was s.h.i.+pped from Werder, the big fruit district near Berlin, to the capital. The ”Z. E. G.” confiscated it but did not sell the goods immediately to the merchants and the plums spoiled. Before this was found out, a crowd of women surrounded the train one day, which was standing on a side track, broke into a car and found most of the plums in such rotten condition they could not be used. So they painted on the sides of the car: ”This is the kind of plum jam the 'Z. E. G.' makes.”

There was a growing scarcity of all other supplies, too. The armies demanded every possible labouring man and woman so even the canning factories had to close and food which formerly was canned had to be eaten while fresh or it spoiled. Even the private German family, which was accustomed to canning food, had to forego this practice because of a lack of tin cans, jars and rubber bands.

The food depots are by far the most successful undertaking of the Government. In Cologne and Berlin alone close to 500,000 poor are being fed daily by munic.i.p.al kitchens. Last October I went through the Cologne food department with the director. The city has rented a number of large vacant factory buildings and made them into kitchens.

Munic.i.p.al buyers go through the country to buy meat and vegetables.

This is s.h.i.+pped to Cologne, and in these kitchens it is prepared by women workers, under the direction of volunteers.

A stew is cooked each day and sold for 42 pfennigs (about eight cents) a quart. The people must give up their potato, fat and meat cards to obtain it. In Berlin and all other large cities, the same system is used. In one kitchen in Berlin, at the main market hall, 80,000 quarts a day are prepared.

In Cologne this food is distributed through the city streets by munic.i.p.al wagons, and the people get it almost boiling hot, ready to eat. Were it not for these food depots there would be many thousands of people who would starve because they could not buy and cook such nouris.h.i.+ng food for the price the city asks. These food kitchens have been in use now almost a year, and, while the poor are obtaining food here, they are becoming very tired of the supply, because they must eat stews every day. They can have nothing fried or roasted.

In addition to these kitchens the Government has opened throughout Germany ”mittlestand kueche,” a restaurant for the middle cla.s.ses.

Here government employees, with small wages, the poor who do not keep house and others with little means can obtain a meal for 10 cents, consisting of a stew and a dessert. But it is very difficult for people to live on this food. Most every one who is compelled by circ.u.mstances to eat here is losing weight and feels under-nourished all the time.

A few months ago, after one of my secretaries had been called to the army; I employed another. He had been earning only $7 a week and had to support his wife. On this money they ate at the middle cla.s.s cafes.

In six months he had lost twenty pounds.

Because the food is so scarce and because it lacks real nourishment people eat all the time. It used to be said before the war that the Germans were the biggest eaters in Europe--that they ate seven meals a day. The blockade has not made them less eaters, for they eat every few hours all day long now, but because the food lacks fats and sugars, they need more food.

Restaurants are doing big business because after one has eaten a ”meal”

at any leading Berlin hotel at 1 o'clock in the afternoon one is hungry by 3 o'clock and ready for another ”meal.”

Last winter the Socialists of Munich, who saw that the rich were having plenty of food and that the poor were existing as best they could in food kitchens, wrote Chancellor von Bethmann-Hollweg and demanded the immediate confiscation of all food in Germany, even that in private residences.

The Socialists' demand was, as are most others, thrown into the waste basket because men like the Chancellor, President Batocki, of the Food Department, wealthy bankers, statesmen and army generals have country estates where they have stored food for an indefinite period. They know that no matter how hard the blockade pinches the people it won't starve them.

When the Chancellor invites people to his palace he has real coffee, white bread, plenty of potatoes, cake and meat. Being a government official he can get what he wants from the food department. So can other officials. Therefore, they were willing to disregard the demand of the Bavarian Socialists.

But the Socialists, although they don't get publicity when they start something, don't give up until they accomplish what they set out to do.