Watching on the Rhine

by Violet R. Markham

German conditions have not sunk to levels of misery so profound as those which exist elsewhere, but they are bad enough to afford a useful standard as to the situation in Austria, Russia, and other countries. That luxury and great extravagance exist side by side with dire want and starvation is a feature of the fatal coil which is throttling the economic life of Europe. Thoughtless travellers are often misled by a superficial appearance of prosperity in the main streets of big towns. Newspaper correspondents seek from time to time to decry the existing misery by giving accounts of the gay life in some cities and the excellent food obtainable at a price in large restaurants. The fact that food of such a kind can be had does not prove the unreality of starvation. All that it proves is a complete breakdown in rationing, and failures in distribution operating most unfairly in favour of the rich. The good dinner paid for at a fancy price is only a link in the chain. At the other end are families whose destitution is the greater because the inefficiency of control has made the serving of such a dinner possible.

When the history of the war comes to be written, the question of food production and distribution in Germany will prove a suggestive no less than a tragic page. The German machine, admirable for carrying out a carefully devised military policy, was useless for meeting unforeseen contingencies which call for public spirit rather than for regulation. The failure to grapple with the food question was complete. German officialism seems to have collapsed helplessly before the problem of distribution and rationing. Though fresh milk is unobtainable in Cologne to-day—except the special supplies rationed by the municipality—it can be had in the country ten miles out. Considerable efforts were made during the war to provide a limited amount of milk for children and nursing mothers. But with better distribution the supplies available might have gone much further. The Government of a country cannot have it both ways, as the Prussian autocrats found to their cost. It cannot at one and the same time exact and obtain docile obedience to a machine and simultaneously develop that free spirit of public co-operation which was the salvation of England during the war. In our own country public opinion rose to the occasion with a will. All classes worked together to make rationing a success, and the brilliant improvisations of the Ministry of Food carried the nation over a crisis of unparalleled magnitude in a manner highly creditable to every one concerned.

Let us admit at once that our food problem did not approach that of the Germans in difficulty. For one thing, the problem of distribution was largely solved for us by the fact that we relied mainly on imported supplies on which the Food authorities could lay their hands at the ports. In Germany, on the contrary, 85 per cent. of the food was produced within her own borders. Self-producers firmly determined to be self-consumers are not easy to deal with. Then again, though there was shortage and inconvenience, we were never really hungry. Greedy and selfish people exist among all classes and nations, and we had our share of both. But making the largest allowance for the greater difficulties of the Germans, the moral is, I think, striking as regards the spirit which a free people can show in a time of stress as against the dragooned temper of a military nation. Military rules could not deal with the food question. In a matter which necessarily was independent of sabre-rattling, no pressure of an independent public opinion seems to have filled the gap.

The struggle between town and country to get possession of the food supplies was severe. Every German is full of complaints about the selfishness of the country people. Not only did they keep enough food for themselves—which, after all, was natural—but they lived in plenty while the towns starved. It may be said broadly that there was no hunger or any particular suffering among the people on the land. Among the industrial classes, estimated at from twenty-eight to thirty millions of the population, the suffering on the other hand was severe. But even to this rule there were many exceptions. Wealth, always a weapon of dominant value, is of supreme importance when hunger is abroad, and this weapon was used mercilessly by the prosperous classes. The working-classes who were earning large wages were in many cases able to pay for additional food; the people who bit the dust were primarily the minor professional and official classes.

Among the words added to the German vocabulary by the war is that of Schleichhandel—illicit trading. Schleichhandel permeated the whole national life. The Schleichhändlers—the little brothers of the Schiebers or profiteers—were rampant. The Schiebers and other wealthy families had Schleichhändlers in their pay whose business it was to find them food. From highest to lowest the same spirit obtained. All accounts agree as to the extraordinarily demoralising consequences of illicit trading on the morale of the race. Professor Starling states that, had the existing food supplies been distributed on a fair and equitable basis, there would have been enough to go round, and the effects of the blockade might to a large extent have been countered. If the attempt was made, it failed lamentably. The terrible winter of 1916-1917, known as the “swede winter”—owing to the failure of potatoes—will never be forgotten by the present generation of Germans.

Matters have improved somewhat during the year 1919-1920. But the prices of food and necessaries of life are still so high that, despite the considerable rise in wages, many working-people cannot afford to pay for adequate nourishment. The present food shortage is still great and, owing to the absence of feeding stuffs and manures, stock and land have both deteriorated. Supplies remain, therefore, at a level far below that of pre-war production, a circumstance aggravated by the world shortage and the financial chaos of the country.

Three special consequences have resulted from this state of affairs. There has been, in the first place, an extraordinary embitterment of feeling between town and country; the urban classes bear the agriculturists a deep grudge for the part they played in the war and the prosperity they acquired by exploiting their neighbours.

Secondly, there has been a great intensification of class hatred as between rich and poor. The ordinary German artisan or shopkeeper speaks with intense bitterness of the upper classes. They were selfish, they were hard, they were greedy, they did nothing for the poor, they lived in comfort while others starved. The well-to-do classes apparently were shameless at grabbing at all they could get. The average German does not believe any rich person could or would act otherwise. Talking to Germans about our respective war shortages, I have mentioned more than once that I had various friends in England who, having farms and producing food, kept their own households on the rationed allowance and sent the rest to market. The look of absolute incredulity on their faces made me realise they thought I was pitching a fine but wholly preposterous tale to the credit of my own country. It was obvious they did not believe a word I said. The behaviour of the German upper classes in this time of testing has had, and is likely to have, very considerable reactions on the political situation. That the Junkers and militarists have brought this particular form of discredit on themselves is all to the good. It will tell heavily against such doubtful chances as exist of their achieving even a measure of political rehabilitation.

An English person brought in contact with these melancholy facts can only reflect with legitimate pride on the different spirit shown in our own country. No aristocracy in Europe has come through the war with credit so high as that of the British upper classes. From the throne downwards, men and women alike, they pulled their weight in the boat as good citizens, bore their full share of death and suffering, and contributed an adequate quota to the united effort of the nation. I have found no evidence in Germany of that mutual goodwill between classes which was a hopeful and encouraging feature in our own land. German life in this, as in many other respects, has to be reconstituted from the foundations upwards.

The third outstanding social reaction of the war is the degree to which ordinary standards of honesty and fair dealing have broken down between man and man. The food shortage, and the cheating to which it led, appears to have entered largely into the matter. Thoughtful Germans deplore the moral debacle which has overtaken the country. Profiteering has been quite shameless. The “Schiebers” have exploited a disastrous economic situation, and many large fortunes were made during the war. The strange paradox of extremes of wealth and poverty goes on side by side. Even the official classes have shown themselves on occasions as selfish as the landowners and the profiteers, and no less unscrupulous in exploiting the advantages of their position. So late as August 1920 ugly charges were brought by the Socialists against the Mayor of Cologne and other City Fathers with reference to the milk and butter supply of the town. The facts which came to light proved that there had been, at the very lowest, culpable slackness in administration and gross favouritism in the distribution of available supplies. City councillors had milk while sick children had none. The anger created by these revelations is easily understood.