foreign assistance as an easy and simple one; on the contrary, they say
it is a serious one, and calls for the supreme effort of the authorities
and of every individual German; and only by energetic, systematic, and
continued efforts of Government and people can they prevent a shortage
of food from negativing the success of German arms. Yet they feel bound
to grapple the problem as one calling for solution by the German people
alone, for very small imports of food products can be expected from the
neutral countries of Europe, and none at all from the United States and
other oversea countries, and the small quantities that do come in will
hardly be more than enough to make good the drain upon Germany's own
available stocks in helping to feed the people of Belgium and Poland.
The simplest statistical elements of the problem are the following:
Germany, with a population of 68,000,000, was consuming food products,
when the war broke out, equivalent to an aggregate of 90,420 billion
calories, including 2,307,000 tons of albumen; whereas the amount now
available, under unchanged methods of living and feeding, is equal to
only 67,870 billion calories, with 1,543,000 tons of albumen. Thus,
there will be an apparent deficit of 22,590 billion calories and 764,000
tons of albumen. On the other hand, the authors hold that the minimum
physiological requirements are only 56,750 billion calories, containing
1,605,000 tons of albumen, which would give a large surplus of calories
and a small deficit of albumen, but they make certain recommendations
which, if carried into effect, would bring the available supply up to
81,250 billion calories and 2,023,000 tons of albumen.
Germany raises (average for 1912-13) about 4,500,000 tons of wheat and
imports nearly 2,000,000 tons, (about 73,000,000 bushels.) On the other
hand, it exports about 530,000 tons net of the 11,900,000 tons of rye
produced. It imports nearly 3,000,000 tons of low-grade barley and about
1,000,000 of maize, both chiefly for feeding stock. Its net imports of
grain and legumes are 6,270,000 tons. Of its fruit consumption, about 30
per cent. has been imported. While Germany has been producing nearly its
entire meat supply at home, this has been accomplished only by the very
extensive use of foreign feedstuffs. The authors of this work estimate
that the imports of meats and animals, together with the product from
domestic animals fed with foreign feedstuffs, amount to not less than 33
per cent. of the total consumption. They also hold that about 58 per
cent. of the milk consumed in Germany represents imports and the product
of cows fed with foreign feedstuffs. Nearly 40 per cent. of the egg
consumption was hitherto imported. The consumption of fish has averaged
576,000 tons, of which not less than 62 per cent. was imported; and the
home fisheries are now confined, besides the internal waters, almost
wholly to the Baltic Sea--which means the loss of the catch of 142,000
tons hitherto taken from the North Sea. Even the German's favorite
beverage, beer, contains 13 per cent. of imported ingredients.
The authors assume, as already intimated, that nearly all of these
imports will be lost to Germany during the full duration of the war, and
they take up, under this big limitation, the problem of showing how
Germany can live upon its own resources and go on fighting till it wins.
They undertake to show how savings can be made in the use of the
supplies on hand, and also how production can be increased or changed so
as to keep the country supplied with food products.
In the first place, they insist that the prohibition of the export of
grain be made absolute; in other words, the small exception made in
favor of Switzerland, which has usually obtained most of its grain from
Germany, must be canceled. Savings in the present supplies of grain and
feedstuffs must be made by a considerable reduction in the live stock,
inasmuch as the grain, potatoes, turnips, and other stuffs fed to
animals will support a great many more men if consumed directly by them.
From the stock of cattle the poorer milkers must be eliminated and
converted into beef, 10 per cent. of the milch cows to be thus disposed,
of. Then swine, in particular, must be slaughtered down to 65 per cent.
of the present number, they being great consumers of material suitable
for human food. In Germany much skim milk and buttermilk is fed to
swine; the authors demand that this partial waste of very valuable
albumens be stopped. The potato crop--of which Germany produces above
50,000,000 tons a year, or much more than any other land--must be more
extensively drawn upon than hitherto for feeding the people. To this end
potato-drying establishments must be multiplied; these will turn out a
rough product for feeding animals, and a better sort for table use. It
may be added here that the Prussian Government last Autumn decided to
give financial aid to agricultural organizations for erecting drying
plants; also, that the Imperial Government has decreed that potatoes up
to a maximum of 30 per cent. may be used by the bakers in making
bread--a measure which will undoubtedly make the grain supply suffice
till the 1915 crop is harvested. It is further recommended that more
vegetables be preserved, whether directly in cold storage or by canning
or pickling. Moreover, the industrial use of fats suitable for human
food (as in making soaps, lubricating oils, &c.) must be stopped, and
people must eat less meat, less butter, and more vegetables. Grain must
not be converted into starch. People must burn coke rather than coal,
for the coking process yields the valuable by-product of sulphate of
ammonia, one of the most valuable of fertilizers, and greatly needed by
German farmers now owing to the stoppage of imports of nitrate of soda
from Chile.
In considering how the German people may keep up their production of
food, the authors find that various factors will work against such a
result. In the first place, there is a shortage of labor, nearly all the
able-bodied young and middle-aged men in the farming districts being in
the war. There is also a scarcity of horses, some 500,000 head having
already been requisitioned for army use, and the imports of about
140,000 head (chiefly from Russia) have almost wholly ceased. The people
must therefore resort more extensively to the use of motor plows, and
the State Governments must give financial assistance to insure this
wherever necessary; and such plows on hand must be kept more steadily in
use through company ownership or rental. It may be remarked here, again,
that the Prussian Government is also assisting agricultural
organizations to buy motor plows. The supply of fertilizers has also
been cut down by the war. Nitrate has just been mentioned. The authors
recommend that the Government solve this problem by having many of the
existing electrical plants turn partly to recovering nitrogen from the
atmosphere. This, they say, could be done without reducing the present
production of electricity for ordinary purposes, since only 19 per cent.
of the effective capacity of the 2,000,000 horse power producible by the
electrical plants of Germany is actually used. The supply of phosphoric
fertilizers is also endangered through the stoppage of imports of
phosphate rock (nearly 1,000,000 tons a year) as well as the material
from which to make sulphuric acid; also, through the reduction in the
production of the iron furnaces of the country, from the slag of which
over 2,000,000 tons of so-called Thomas phosphate flour was produced,
will involve a big reduction in the make of that valuable fertilizer.
Thus, there is a lack of horses, of fertilizers, and of the guiding hand
of man. This last, however, can be partly supplied by utilizing for farm
work such of the prisoners of war as come from the farm. As Germany now
holds considerably more than 600,000 prisoners, it can draw many farm
laborers from among them. Prisoners are already used in large numbers in
recovering moorland for agricultural purposes.
This latter remark suggests one of the recommendations of the authors
for increasing agricultural production--the increased recovery of
moorlands. They show that Germany has at least 52,000 square miles (more
than 33,000,000 acres) of moors convertible into good arable land,
which, with proper fertilizing, can be made at once richly productive;
they yield particularly large crops of grain and potatoes. Moreover, the
State Governments must undertake the division of large landed estates
among small proprietors wherever possible--and this is more possible
just now than ever, owing to the fact that many large owners have been
killed in battle. The reason for such a division is that the small
holder gets more out of the acre than the large proprietor.
As Germany makes a large surplus of sugar, the authors advise that the
area planted in beets be reduced and the land thus liberated be planted
in grain, potatoes, and turnips; as a matter of fact, it is reported
that the Government is now considering the question of reducing the
beetroot acreage by one-fourth. The authors also recommend that sugar be
used to some extent in feeding stock, sweeting low-grade hay and roots
with it to make them more palatable and nutritious. It is also regarded
as profitable to leave 20 per cent. of sugar in the beets, so as to
secure a more valuable feed product in the remnants. Still another
agricultural change is to increase the crops of beans, peas, and
lentils--vegetables which contain when dried as much nutrition as meat.
Germany will need to increase its home production of these crops to
replace the 300,000 tons of them hitherto imported.
Such are the principal points covered by these experts. Their conclusion
is that, if their recommendations be carried out fully, and various
economies be practiced--they could not be touched on in the limits of
this article--Germany can manage to feed its people. But they insist, in
their earnest, concluding words, that this can only be done by carrying
out thoroughly all the methods of producing and saving food products
advised by them. It is a serious problem, indeed, but one which, all
Germany is convinced, can and will be solved.
HOCH DER KAISER
BY GEORGE DAVIES
_HOCH DER KAISER! Amen! Amen!
We of the pulpit and bar,
We of the engine and car;
Hail to the Caesar who's given us men,
Our rightful heritage back again._
Who kicks the dancing shoes from our feet;
Snatches our mouths from the hot forced meat;
Drags us away from our warm padded stalls;
From our ivory keys, our song books and balls;
Orders man's hands from the children's go-carts;
Closes our fool schools of "ethics" and "arts."
Puts our ten fingers on triggers and swords,
Marshals us into War's legions by hordes.
_Hoch der Kaiser! Amen! Amen!
We of the sea and the land;
We of the clerking band;
Hail to the Caesar who's given us men
Our rightful heritage back again._
_WHO SUMMONS:_
These women who write of loves that are loose,
(Those little perversionist scribes of the Deuce!)
Laughter of lies lilting lewd at their lips,
Their souls and brains both in a maudlin eclipse;
Their bosoms as bare as their stories and songs;
These coaxers of dogs with their "rights" and their wrongs.
_WHO COMMANDS:_
Strike from their shoulders the transparent mesh;
Mark the Red Cross on the cloth for their flesh.
_WHO ORDAINS:_
Ye, men who seem women in work and at play;
Ye, who do blindly as women may say;
Ye, who kill life in the smug cabarets;
Ye, all, at the beck of the little tea-tray;
Ye, all, of the measure of daughters of clay.
Waken to face me: be women no more;
But fellow-men born, from top branch to the core;
Men who must fight--who can kill, who can die,
While women once more shall be covered and shy.
_Hoch der Kaiser! Amen! Amen!
We of the hills and the homes;
We of the plows and the tomes;
Hail to the Caesar who's given us men
Our rightful heritage back again._
The Submarine of 1578
[From The London Times, Jan. 16, 1915.]
The earliest description of a practical under-water boat is given by
William Bourne in his book entitled "Inventions or Devices," published
in 1578. Instructions for building such a boat are given in detail, and
it has been conjectured that Cornelius van Drebbel, a Dutch physician,
used this information for the construction of the vessel with which in
the early part of the seventeenth century he carried out some
experiments on the Thames. It is doubtful, however, whether van
Drebbel's boat was ever entirely submerged, and the voyage with which he
was credited, from Westminster to Greenwich, is supposed to have been
made in an awash condition, with the head of the inventor above the
surface. More than one writer at the time referred to van Drebbel's boat
and endeavored to explain the apparatus by which his rowers were enabled
to breathe under water.
Van Drebbel died in 1634, and no illustration of his boat has been
discovered. Nineteen years later the vessel illustrated here was
constructed at Rotterdam from the designs of a Frenchman named de Son.
This is supposed to be the earliest illustration of any submarine, and
the inscription under the drawing, which was printed at Amsterdam in the
Calverstraat, (in the Three Crabs,) is in old Dutch, of which the
following is a translation:
The inventor of this ship will undertake to destroy in a
single day a hundred vessels, and such destruction could not
be prevented by fire, storm, bad weather, or the force of the
waves, saving only that the Almighty should otherwise will it.
[Illustration: The figures on the drawing refer to the following
explanations:
1. The beam wherewith power shall be given to the ship.
2. The rudder of the ship, somewhat aft.
3. The keel plate.
4. The two ends of the ship, iron plated.
5. Iron bolts and screws.
6. How deep the ship goes into the water when awash.
7. The pivots on which the paddle-wheel turns.
8. Air holes.
9. Gallery along which men can move.
The inset is a drawing of the paddle-wheels which fill the centre
portion of the boat and which work upon the pivot marked 7.]
Vain would it be for ships lying in harbor to be regarded as
safe, for the inventor could reach anywhere unless prevented
by betrayal. None but he could control the craft. Therefore it
may truly be called the lightning of the sea.
Its power shall be proven by a trip to the East Indies in six
weeks or to France and back in a day, for as fast as a bird
flieth can one travel in this boat.
This boat was 72 feet in length, and her greatest height was 12 feet,
while the greatest breadth was 8 feet, tapering off to points at the
end. Capt. Murray Sueter in his book on submarines gives these and other
particulars of the vessel. At either end the boat had a cabin, the air
in which remained good for about three hours, and in the middle of the
boat was a large paddlewheel rotated by clockwork mechanism, which, it
was claimed, would run for eight hours when once wound up. The iron tips
at the ends of the vessel were intended for ramming, and the inventor
was confident he could sink the biggest English ship afloat by crushing
in her hull under water. The boat was duly launched, but on trial of the
machinery being made the paddlewheel, though it revolved in air, would
not move in the water, the machinery being not powerful enough. This,
says Capt. Sueter, was apparently the only reason for de Son's failure,
for his principles were distinctly sound, and he was certainly the first
inventor of the mechanically propelled semi-submarine boat. After her
failure de Son exhibited her for a trifle to any casual passer-by.
THE TORPEDO.
By Katharine Drayton Mayrant Simons, Jr.
Death, our mother, gave us her three gray gifts from the sea--
(Cherish your birthright, Brothers!)--speed, cunning, and certainty.
And mailèd Mars, he blest us--but his blessing was most to me!
For the swift gun sometimes falters, sparing the foe afar,
And the hid mine wastes destruction on the drag's decoying spar,
But I am the wrath of the Furies' path--of the war god's avatar!
Mine is the brain of thinking steel man made to match his own,
To guard and guide the death disks packed in the war head's hammered cone,
To drive the cask of the thin air flask as the gyroscope has shown.
My brother, the gun, shrieks o'er the sea his curse from the covered deck,
My brother, the mine, lies sullen-dumb, agape for the dreadnought's wreck,
I glide on the breath of my mother, Death, and my goal is my only check!
More strong than the strength of armored ships is the firing pin's frail
spark,
More sure than the helm of the mighty fleet are my rudders to their mark,
The faint foam fades from the bright screw blades--and I strike from the
under dark!
Death, our mother, gave us her three gray gifts from the sea--
(Cherish your birthright, Brothers!)--speed, cunning, and certainty.
And mailèd Mars, he blest us--but his blessing was most to me!
"God Punish England, Brother"
A New Hymn of Germany's Gospel of Hatred
[From Public Opinion, London, Feb. 5, 1915.]
The amazing outburst of hatred against England in Germany is responsible
for a new form of greeting which has displaced the conventional formulas
of salutation and farewell: "God punish England!" ("Gott strafe
England!") is the form of address, to which the reply is: "May God
punish her!" ("Gott mög'es strafen!")
"This extraordinary formula," says The Mail, "which is now being used
all over Germany, is celebrated in a set of verses by Herr Hochstetter
in a recent number of the well-known German weekly, Lustige Blätter. In
its way this poem is as remarkable as Herr Ernst Lissauer's famous 'Hymn
of Hate.'"
Among the prayers at Bruges Cathedral on the Kaiser's birthday was this
German chant of hate, "God Punish England!"
A HYMN OF HATE.
Translated by
G. VALENTINE WILLIAMS.
This is the German greeting
When men their fellows meet,
The merchants in the market-place,
The beggars in the street.
A pledge of bitter enmity,
Thus runs the wingèd word:
"God punish England, brother!--
Yea! Punish her, O Lord!"
With raucous voice, brass-throated,
Our German shells shall bear
This curse that is our greeting
To the "cousin" in his lair.
This be our German battle cry,
The motto on our sword:
"God punish England, brother!--Yea!
Punish her, O Lord!"
By shell from sea, by bomb from air,
Our greeting shall be sped,
Making each English homestead
A mansion of the dead.
And even Grey will tremble
As falls each iron word:
"God punish England, brother!--
Yea! Punish her, O Lord!"
This is the German greeting
When men their fellows meet,
The merchants in the market-place,
The beggars in the street.
A pledge of bitter enmity,
Thus runs the winged word:
"God punish England, brother!--
Yea! Punish her, O Lord!"
"What German Lutheran pastors think of the gospel of hate that is at
present being preached throughout the Fatherland may be judged from an
article on the subject written for the Vossische Zeitung of Berlin, by
Dr. Julius Schiller of Nürnberg, who describes himself as a royal
Protestant pastor," says The Morning Post.
"Before the war, the pastor writes, it was considered immoral to hate;
now, however, Germans know that they not only may, but they must hate.
Herr Lissauer's 'Hymn of Hate' against England is, he declares, a
faithful expression of the feelings cherished in the depths of the
German soul.
"'All protests against this hate,' the pastor writes, 'fall on deaf
ears; we strike down all hands that would avert it. We cannot do
otherwise; we must hate the brood of liars. Our hate was provoked, and
the German can hate more thoroughly than any one else. A feeling that
this is the case is penetrating into England, but the fear of the German
hate is as yet hidden. There is a grain of truth in Lord Curzon's
statement that the phlegmatic temperament of his countrymen is incapable
of hating as the Germans hate.
"'We Germans do, as a matter of fact, hate differently than the sons of
Albion. We Germans hate honorably, for our hatred is based on right and
justice. England, on the other hand, hates mendaciously, being impelled
by envy, ill-will, and jealousy. It was high time that we tore the mask
from England's face, that we finally saw England as she really is.
"'We hate with a clean conscience, although religion seems to condemn as
unæsthetic everything that is included in the word hate.' The Pastor
concludes by asserting that 'we, who are fighting for truth and right
with clean hands and a clean conscience, must have Him on our side Who
is stronger than the strongest battalions. Hence our courage and our
confidence in a fortunate outcome of the world conflagration. The dawn
will soon appear that announces that the "Day of Harvest" for Germany
has broken.'"
"The avowal that the love of good Germans for Germany is inseparable
from hatred of other countries shows how deeply the aggressiveness of
German policy has sunk into the nation's mood," says The Times. "Only
by constantly viewing their own country as in a natural state of
challenge to all others can Germans have come to absorb the view that
hatred is the normal manifestation of patriotism. It is a purely
militarist conception.
"Hate is at bottom a slavish passion, and remote from that heroic spirit
of the warrior with which the Germans represent themselves as facing a
world in arms. The hater subjects his mind to the domination of what he
hates; he loses his independence and volition and becomes the prey of
the hated idea. At last he cannot free his mind from the obsession; and
the deliberate cultivation of hate in the conscientious German manner is
a kind of mental suicide."
THE GREAT HOUR.
By HERMANN SUDERMANN.
Whether, O Father in Heaven, we still put our trust in You,
Whether You are but a dream of a sacred past,
See now, we swear to You, Witness of Truth,
Not we have wanted it--
This murder, this world-ending murder--
Which now, with blood-hot sighs,
Stamps o'er the shuddering earth.
True to the earth, the bread-giving earth,
Happy and cheery in business and trade,
Peaceful we sat in the oak tree's shade,
Peaceful,
Though we were born to the sword.
Circled around us, for ever and ever,
Greed, sick with envy, and nets lifted high,
Full of inherited hatred.
Every one saw it, and every one felt
The secret venom, gushing forth,
Year after year,
Heavy and breath-bated years.
But hearts did not quiver
Nor hands draw the sword.
And then it came, the hour
Of sacred need, of pregnant Fate,
And what it brings forth, we will shape,
The brown gun in our mastering hand.
Ye mothers, what ye once have borne,
In honor or in vice,
Bring forth to every sacred shrine--
Your country's sacrifice.
Ye brides, whom future happiness,
Once kissed--it but seemed true,
Bring back to fair Germania
What she has given you.
Ye women, in silks or in linen,
Offer your husbands now.
Bid them goodbye, with your children,
With smiles and a blessing vow.
Ye all are doomed to lie sleepless,
Many a desolate night,
And dream of approaching conquests
And of your hero's might.
And dream of laurel and myrtle,
Until he shall return,
Till he, your master and shepherd,
Shall make the old joys burn.
And if he fell on the Autumn heath
And fell deep into death,
He died for Germania's greatness,
He died for Germania's breath.
The Fatherland they shall let stand,
Upon his blood-soaked loam,
And ne'er again shall they approach
Our sacred, peaceful home.
--Translated by Herman J. Mankiewicz.
[Illustration: H.M. GUSTAF V
King of Sweden
_(Photo from Underwood & Underwood)_]
[Illustration: H.M. HAAKON VII
King of Norway
_(Photo from Underwood & Underwood)_]
The Peace of the World
A Famous Englishman's Diagnosis of the War Disease and His Prescription
for a Permanent Cure
By H.G. Wells
(COPYRIGHT, 1915, BY THE NEW YORK TIMES COMPANY.)
(Copyrighted in Great Britain and Ireland.)
I.
Probably there have never been before in the whole past of mankind so
many people convinced of the dreadfulness of war, nor so large a
proportion anxious to end war, to rearrange the world's affairs so that
this huge hideousness of hardship, suffering, destruction, and killing
that still continues in Europe may never again be repeated.
The present writer is one of this great majority. He wants as far as
possible to end war altogether, and contrive things so that when any
unavoidable outbreak does occur it may be as little cruel and
mischievous as it can be.