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Show FOOD SUPPLY IS GREAT PROBLEM DF THEGERMAN5 Correspondent From Berlin Says While Situation May Not Grow Worse, It Cannot Can-not Grow Better. CITY DWELLERS SUFFER THE MOST People Living in Country Hold Out on Food Director Direc-tor and No Longer Obey Regulations. i GENEVA, Switzerland, via London, Feb. 16, 10:15 p. m. The food situation situa-tion in Germany cannot grow worse, but it scarcely can become better. This is the outstanding feature of Germany's great problem. The German people as yet are not starving, and still have provisions in adequate quantities to support life, while in the case of further decreases in available supplies there still is the institution of compulsor3' "soup kitchens," kitch-ens," the most economical method of making all foodstuffs go as far as possible pos-sible to stand between Germany and any forced termination to the war through an absolute lack of food. Life for the civilian population of Germany on the present scanty allowance of food, however, is far from pleasant, though the German newspapers are fond of referring re-ferring to conditions this winter and last winter as exceptional. They also sa3' that the short rations are due largely large-ly to bad harvests and like to intimate that normal crops of grain and potatoes pota-toes in the coming summer may end the principal food difficulties. Problem One of Labor. Many agricultural experts believe that the central empires did as well in both years as could be expected, and that the populations of Germany and Austria must reconcile themselves to getting along during the coming harvest har-vest year on no greater allowance than in the past. The problem, as frankly, discussed in agricultural circles and as outlined in a recent circular of the Prussian ministry of agriculture, is not one of more land for crops, but one of labor and fertilizer to cultivate the land- already available advantageously. Even the normal supply of potash a fertilizing material indigenous to Germany Ger-many in great quantities will not be available the coming season, owing to the labor shortage. The many factories producing nitrogen from the air will not be able to produce enough nitrates bv far, in view of the ammunition requirements, re-quirements, to replace the nitrates normally nor-mally imported from Chile for agricultural agricul-tural purposes and other improved fertilizers. fer-tilizers. Prisoners Tilling Soil. The decidedly short supply of labor, even by working every available prisoner pris-oner of war and the inhabitants of occupied oc-cupied districts, is not enough for the intensive cultivation which made. Germany Ger-many a world leader in big-crop farming. farm-ing. Taking all these factors into consideration, consid-eration, it is highly improbable that there will be any increase in general crop production over 1916 and 1915. Weather conditions may, as in 1915, produce a bumper potato crop and a poor grain crop, or the reverse results, as m 1916, but the general result probably will be about the same. Must Tighten Belts. Very little help, Adolph von Batocki, president of the food regulation board, stated, in a recent address, can be ex- ptCieu Hum uiiisuic auuii:w .uo a ture. Neighboring countries, he said, being under the steadily increasing pressure pres-sure of the British sea control, would have little or nothing available for export ex-port to Germany this vear, and the Germans Ger-mans must pull in their belts to a notch tighter and reconcile themselves to holding hold-ing out on present allowances. The food expert of New Cologne, one of the municipalities of Greater Berlin, stated recently, in fact, that the current allowance of meat, fat, bread and potatoes pota-toes was inadequate for working men engaged in heavy labor, and that men so employed required a supplementary allowance, which, however, the factories fac-tories managed usually to supply in order or-der to maintain production. Hold Out Well. So far, the people of Germany are holding out well, tjhough with a great deal of grumbling "in urban and industrial indus-trial regions, where conditions are worst. The German people are still well disciplined and for the present are not apt to give way to pressure and to abandon aban-don the war, "in which they now Nf eel thev are standing with their backs to the' wall, with no alternative except to ficht out the struggle for national existence-. The government has had no trouble of moment in keeping citizens to the mark and "food riots" reported from time to time in the foreign press are either inventions or exaggerated accounts ac-counts of unimportant demonstrations. As to actual conditions: Potato stocks under the ration of five pounds weekly, to which the authorities authori-ties plan to return as soon as turnips are offered as a winter substitute, will barely last until the advent of spring. Early summer vegetables and turnips have proved a very unfilling substitute substi-tute for potatoes, so the food authorities authori-ties have been forced to augment the bread and flour rations to make up the disparity. This drawing upon the grain supplies is to such an extent that even with the help of grain obtained from Rumania there will be no reserve stock of grain to carry over into the new crop year. The meat ration may and probably will be increased from the present 250 grams, or half a pound, to 350 grams. weekly, though at the expense of next year's prospective supply. There is no hope for an increase in the rations of milk and butter, because, although with green pasturage available in the spring, the cattle may be turned out to graze, they will come through the winter in an impoverished condition, because potatoes, pota-toes, turnips and other "strong fodder" fod-der" have been taken from them for human hu-man consumption. It also is probable that little of such food can be spared for the animals during the coming year. There is. of course, a large quantity of food in the country which does not come into the governmental food distribution dis-tribution system. The country population popula-tion and the inhabitants of small towns in the agricultural regions are far better bet-ter off than residents of cities and industrial centers without their own sources of supply. The average estate owner and small farmer, it is safe to say. has so far from his own acres been able to supply his needs with virtually the same amount of food for family consumption as in peace times, and holds out enough from the tentacles of Von Batocki 's food distribution mahcine to supply his farm hands with normal ra-tions'of ra-tions'of meat, bread, potatoes, milk and cheese, which they demand as a preliminary pre-liminary condition to working. Country People Have Food. In the small towns and villages of east Prussia, Schleswig-Holstein and other predominantly agricultural regions, re-gions, and even in south Germany, cheese and eggs, which have disappeared entirely en-tirely from the large cities, and buttermilk, but-termilk, which is supplied on only the scantiest scale, are obtainable without difficulty. Bread and potatoes are supplied sup-plied without much regard to the card svstera generally prescribed. "The food distribution department, which has tried vainly for two years to bring the entire supply of such articles ar-ticles within the food distribution scheme to insure equal distribution under un-der maximum prices of the available supplies throughout the empire, has finally fi-nally been forced to admit failure in this' regard, arid Herr von Batocki, president presi-dent of the department, has recommended recommend-ed that municipalities make direct contracts con-tracts with producers for surplus supplies sup-plies of various agricultural products, as otherwise they will never leave the farm or adjacent villages and small towns. Germany's organization, or over-organization, has in fact had one striking result to convert Germans from a nation na-tion of law obeyers to whom a written ordinance or rescript was a fetich, and into whose minds a thought of violating violat-ing a law or police regulation never came, into a nation of out-breakers, out to violate each and every paragraph of the vast code of distributive regulations for food, clothing and other necessities of life at any opportunity. Wholesale Falsification. Every urbanite who has "sources" or "connections," words which have acquired a specific war-time significance signifi-cance has used them without compunction com-punction to obtain required food supplies. sup-plies. Statements of amounts of food on hand in households have resulted in wholesale falsification. Well-to-do or wealthv families spend large amounts to obtain surreptitiously and illegaly the provisions required to keep up their normal before-the-w-ar standard. "Weak members of the proletariat visit regularly regular-ly the country districts to induce farmers farm-ers to join with them in breaking the laws arid sell food to be smuggled back into towns. The persons who suffer most under the existing conditions are urbanites of small income teachers, petty onicials and others who have neither "sources" nor "connections," and whose means do not permit them to pay the enormous prices demanded for supplies not distributed dis-tributed through the regular channels of war-time rhachinery. |