Nordenholt's Million

by J. J. Connington

The history of Japan under the influence of B. diazotans is of especial interest, since it presents the closest parallel to our own experiences. At the outbreak of the Famine, the practical minds of the Japanese statesmen seem to have acted with the promptitude which Nordenholt had shown. They had not his psychological insight, it is true; but they had a simpler problem before them, since they could ignore public opinion entirely. Fairly complete accounts of their operations are in existence, so far as the outer manifestations of their policy are concerned, though we know little as yet of the inner history of the events.

Kiyotome Zada appears to have been the Japanese Nordenholt. Under his direction, two great expeditions raided Manchuria and Eastern China with the object of capturing the largest possible quantity of food-stuffs. It is probable that these two invasions, with the consequent loss of food-supplies, led to the great stirrings among the population of China. A Nitrogen Area was set up in the South Island, the Kobe shipyards being its nucleus. Thereafter the history follows very closely upon that of the Clyde Valley experiment, except in its last stages.

Among the other Pacific communities the Famine proved almost completely destructive. I have already told of the spreading of B. diazotans through the chain of islands between Australia and Burmah. In Australia itself no attempt was made to found a nitrogen-producing plant on a sufficiently large scale.

One curious episode deserves mention. In the earlier days of the Famine, news reached the Australian ports that certain of the Polynesian islands were still free from the scourge; and a frenzied emigration followed. But each ship carried with it the freight of B. diazotans, so that this exodus merely served to spread the bacilli into spots which otherwise they might not have reached. Before very long the whole of Polynesia was involved in the disaster. Some diaries have been discovered on board deserted vessels; and in every case the history is the same: the long search through devastated islands, the discovery at last of some untouched spot in the ocean wilderness, the rejoicings, the landing, and then, a few days later, the realisation that here also the bacillus had made its appearance. What seems most curious is the fact that in many cases it was weeks before the ship’s company grasped the apparently obvious truth that their own appearance coincided with the arrival of the fatal germs. It never seems to have occurred to any of them that they bore with them the very thing which they were trying to escape. So they went from island to island, seeking refuge from a plague which stood ever at their elbow, until at last their stores failed.

On the West Coast of South America a new phenomenon appeared. The huge deposits of nitrates in Bolivia and South Peru formed the best breeding-ground for B. diazotans which had yet been detected, with the result that nitrogen poured into the atmosphere in unheard-of volumes. In most places the winds were sufficient to disperse these invisible clouds of gas; but in some spots the arrival of the bacilli coincided with a dead calm, so that the nitrogen remained in the neighbourhood in which it was generated. The great salt swamp in the Potosi district furnished the best example of this phenomenon. The whole surface frothed and boiled for days together; and the atmosphere in the neighbourhood became so heavily charged with nitrous fumes that the air was almost unbreatheable. All the inhabitants of the district fled before this, to them, inexplicable danger; and the effects extended as far as Llica and the railway junction at Uyuni. In this “caliche” district, the destruction of combined nitrogen probably attained its maximum; and the propagation of B. diazotans never reached such a level in any other part of the world.

But with this enormous multiplication of the bacilli, other events followed. Carried north and east by winds, these huge quantities of the germs found their way into the headwaters of the Amazon and its tributaries, and were thus carried eastward into the very heart of the tropical forests, where they continued to breed with almost inconceivable rapidity. Soon the whole of the vegetation in this region was in a decline; and the Amazon valley degenerated into a swamp choked with dead and dying plants. Humanity was driven out long before the end came. Animal life could not persist in the midst of this noisome wilderness.

The same phenomena appeared, though in a different form, over the southern part of South America. Here also the great rivers formed the main distributing agencies for the bacilli; and the whole cattle-raising district was devastated. The stock was slaughtered on a huge scale as soon as it became clear that vegetation had perished; but owing to mismanagement and transport difficulties the preservatives necessary to make the best of the meat thus obtained were not procurable in sufficient quantities. Nevertheless, by converting as much as possible into biltong, more than sufficient was preserved to keep a very large part of the population alive during the Famine; and in later days, by trading their surplus dried meat for cereals and nitrogenous compounds, they succeeded in rescuing a greater proportion of lives than might have been anticipated.

To complete this survey of the world at that period, the effect of B. diazotans upon North America still remains to be told. I have already given some information with regard to the spread of the Blight across the Middle West; but I must mention that it was in this part of the world especially that these curious isolated immune areas were observed, wherein the bacillus seemed to make no headway. Thousands of acres in all were found to be untouched by the denitrifying organisms.

At the time of the Famine the civilisation of North America was in a curious condition, mainly owing to the influx of a foreign element which had taken place to a greater and greater extent after the War. The immigrants had come in such numbers that assimilation of them was impossible, and in this way the stability of the central Government was weakened. To a great extent the Southern States had fallen into the hands of the negroes, but similar segregations were to be found in other parts of the country. Germans accumulated in one State, Italians in another, East Europeans and Slavs in yet other areas. Thus Congress became subject to the group system of government, with all the weaknesses which such a system brings in its train.

When B. diazotans first made its appearance in the Continent the Government in power was composed of feeble men, without character and unfitted for bold decisions. The prohibition of cereal exports was a measure arising from panic rather than foresight; and once this had been put in operation, the Government rested on its oars and awaited the turn of events.