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fought was for the sacredness of treaties. To denounce the London Pact because it was secret is absurd. During war time no belligerent would make public such a treaty for the benefit of the enemy.

Nevertheless Italy's general purposes were known; one of those purposes was to secure her own defense, and the other was to redeem Italia Irredenta. The break-up of the Austro-Hungarian Empire does not alter the face of nature. Italy's

reasonable demands for a safe frontier on the north have been recognized, even though there is to be a League of Nations. Why not also on the east? Italy is not seeking territory out of land greed, but out of a legitimate desire to render war against her difficult and to remove causes of irritation among Italians. Italy does not crave rule over alien peoples, but she believes that if in rescuing Italians from alien rules she must incur responsibility for the rule of aliens, her own record in giving liberty to French-speaking, German-speaking, and Slavic-speaking peoples in her borders is evidence that she can be trusted to give liberty to newcomers.

It is to be regretted that the new Jugoslav state is showing at its birth an imperialistic ambition, for Jugoslavia is seeking territory won by Italy and now held by Italy and inhabited by Italians who protest against being transferred to an untried nation. The Croats have never shown any evidence of being able to give liberty to aliens under their control. There should be no talk of Italy's imperialism in the face of the following figures: According to the respective claims of the nations, aliens under Polish control would constitute forty per cent of the population, under Czechoslovak control thirty per cent, under Rumanian control seventeen per cent, under French control over four per cent, while under Italian control less than four per cent.

As to Fiume, first and foremost, the principle of self-determination, if it applies anywhere, applies here. Fiume has declared its independence of Croatia and Hungary and its union to Italy. This the city did by a National Council called together by a meeting of citizens. If Fiume were an isolated city the question might be difficult; but it is not isolated. On the contrary, it is on the Italian side of the river which is the natural border of Italy. That the farming population on the outskirts of Fiume are Croatian is no reason why the city itself should not be allowed to have its natural allegiance to Italy recognized and confirmed. Indeed, Fiume is now Italian. To give it to Croatia would be to wrest it from those who hold it now in fact and by virtue of the people's wish. Commercial justice, as well as self-determination, is on the side of Italian rights in Fiume. The very fact that it is the natural outlet of countries to the north and northeast should determine the decision in favor of Italy. Czechoslovakia, Rumania, and Hungary are as much interested in the port of Fiume as the Croatians, and there is reason to believe that the Czechs, the Hungarians, and the Rumanians.

would rather have Fiume in Italian than in Croatian hands. Moreover, it is important that this outlet to the Adriatic should not be in the hands of any people who can be controlled by Germany. It is obvious that a small and comparatively weak people, numbering only eight million, cannot easily stand up against the commercial aggressions of Austria-Germany, numbering some eighty million. All the weak nations will be better served if Fiume is in the hands of a strong nation like Italy. Before the war Croatia provided only a small proportion of the commerce of Fiume-about seven per cent. The interest of other countries far outweighs the interest of Croatia in this port. It is not as if the Jugoslavs had no other port on the Adriatic. Italy has no intention of cutting off Jugoslavia from the sea. Serbia can have her economic outlet at several points on the coast, and Croatia can have hers on the Channel of Morlacca, including harbors capable of great development and centrally situated. The argument that England and France are bound not to give Fiume to Italy is absurd. That treaty was not a promise to Croatia, but to Italy, and England and France are bound only by what they agreed to do in support of it, not by what they did not agree to do. If justice to the Italians of Fiume and justice to the commercial interests of Europe require that Fiume be made Italian, there is no promise that stands in the way.

As to Dalmatia, the important thing to remember is that strategically it is a menace to Italy, and to Italy alone. From Dalmatia the mainland is safe from attack because of the impregnable barrier of mountains, while Italy is open to attack, as has been proved in this war. The possession of Dalmatia would be therefore for Italy no offensive advantage, but solely of defensive value; but as a defense it is vital. Italy does not ask for the whole of Dalmatia or even a large part of it. The greater part of the coast and of the islands would in any case remain Jugoslav. All that Italy asks is the possession of the Italian parts of Dalmatia, together with such portions as will make it impossible for any Power hereafter to use Dalmatia as a base of attack upon Italy. It is impossible to foresee all future contingencies. No guarantee written on paper can take the place of natural defenses. What Italy wants Dalmatia for is for defense, not against the Slavs, with whom she hopes to be on friendly terms, but against a revival of Germanism. Against that the Jugoslavs themselves are not strong because they are not united, because they are comparatively few in numbers, and because some of them have been and are still in sympathy pro-German. If Dalmatia were purely Slav in population and tradition, there might be more reason for objecting to Italy's claims there; but, in fact, the character of civilization in Dalmatia is derived from Italy. Dalmatia is not merely a relic of the Italian past, but a testimony to the Italian present. The national consciousness of Dalmatia is Italian. The Slavs there are

divided in religion, in tradition, and even in the alphabets they use. Furthermore, many of the people of Dalmatia who are commonly counted Slavs are really of Latin origin. These are the so-called Morlacchi who, according to Czechoslovak authority, are "the Romanic shepherds

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of the mountains of Dalmatia." The cities of Dalmatia, which give the character to the region, are Italian, and it is only recently that the Jugoslavs, and principally the Croats, have thought of Dalmatia as essentially Slavic. Slavic expansion is normally southeast, for between Dalmatia and the rest of the Balkan Peninsula is the great range of the Dinaric Alps. But Italy does not want and has never claimed the whole of Dalmatia. What she wants and feels she has a right to is only onesixth of what she concedes to the Jugoslavs. Whatever decision is made, there will be either Jugoslavs under Italian rule or Italians under Jugoslav rule. Italy, as a united nation with a great and distinctive civilization, with a history proving her devotion to the cause of liberty, and with a record proving her ability to preserve the rights of peoples of alien origin within her borders, is claiming only that which is in full accord with the spirit of the cause for which she has fought with her allies. Italy has indorsed the plan for a League of Nations. The League of Nations will be the stronger if composed of nations freed from the temptation of attacking others but well defended themselves. She wishes to enter that League strong and unmenaced, with the consciousness that it has been established by a victory which has consummated the struggle for the liberation of her peoples that was begun years ago. Her part in the war she believes her allies ought to accept as pledge of her good faith.

IS A COMPROMISE POSSIBLE? Much misunderstanding concerning this controversy is due to the fact that the terms used are not altogether clear. When it is said that Fiume should or should not be Italian, it is not clear whether that is meant to apply to commercial control or to political control or to both. When the term Dalmatia is used, the implication is that all of Dalmatia is referred to; but it is plain that Italy's claim to Dalmatia is a claim to only part of the coast and some of the islands. With respect to neither Fiume nor Dalmatia is it a question of all or nothing. It is conceivable, for example, that Fiume could be made a part of Italy politically, preserving its ancient local autonomy, and yet be made subject to commercial regulations of an international or quasi-international character. It does not seem to be out of the range of possibility that sufficient naval and military sites be given to Italy on the Dalmatian Islands to insure Italy against any future attack upon that quarter, and, what is equally important, to establish her peace of mind, and also to give her such towns as are plainly Italian in character, leaving the rest of the coast and islands, with ample access to the Adriatic, to Jugoslavia.

TWO ARTICLES ON A VANQUISHED NATION

DO THE GERMANS KNOW THEY ARE BEATEN ?-THE END OF THE GERMAN BLUFFARE THE GERMANS STARVING?-BLATANT CRIME IN BERLIN-ARMED SOLDIERS IN THE HOTEL-IS BOLSHEVISM A PRODUCT OF THE ALLIED BLOCKADE?-FOOD SCARCITY AND SPECULATION-FOOD SHORTAGE OR BAD DISTRIBUTION?-THE REASON WHY GERMAN WORKMEN ARE IDLE-WHAT THE GERMANS THEMSELVES SAY ABOUT ITTHE FALSE GOSPEL OF LABOR"-WHAT GERMANY NEEDS

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I-DISINTEGRATING GERMANY

BY GREGORY MASON

STAFF CORRESPONDENT OF THE OUTLOOK

HE Germans and the Austrians are

Tbadly beaten, and they know it.

In analyzing the impressions gathered in a just completed tour of several weeks through Austria and Germany that conviction stands out to me as more impor tant than any other.

I had read of how the returning German troops were welcomed by the populations of German cities after the armistice with flowers and music like conquering heroes, and of how Germans were boasting that their army had not been beaten. These reports were enough to make one wonder if the Teutons had been decisively defeated, after all. I come back now from a circular tour in which I visited Vienna, Prague, Dresden, Berlin, Nuremberg, Munich, and a number of smaller towns, with the conviction that Germany is well licked, and feels it.

How about the German boasting, then, and the welcoming receptions for home coming soldiers, the music and the wreaths? Well, the receptions for the soldiers were natural enough. Even the bitterest foe of Germany will hardly deny that the German army fought hard and fought well. Remember that to probably the majority of Germans the theory that Germany had been unjustly attacked by Russia and France prevailed up to the last day of fighting. And even if you have lost all your colonies and surrendered your fleet it is human to turn out to greet the home-coming brothers, sons, and husbands who have kept your Fatherland free from invasion for four and a half years. The flowers and the music were simply human nature.

As to the boasting, it is just a pitiful attempt to save a little face. The boy who is thrashed by another mutters, as he picks himself up and pulls the grass out

of his hair:

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Aw, yer hit me before I was ready. An' if I weighed as much as you there wouldn't be anythin' to it." There is one answer which infallibly

stops the German's boast that his army was not defeated.

"You know, our army was never really beaten," a German officer said to me in

Berlin.

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"I see. When it began to go against you, you just quit. Well, if two boys are fighting, for example, or if two men are fighting in the prize ring, and one of them throws up the sponge and quits cold, to our way of thinking, that fellow is a pretty poor sort of a sport. We think a good deal more of a chap who stands up and takes his licking.'

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The Hun had no rejoinder. None of them has. They have never thought of it that way; but when you put it to them that way, as I did to dozens, they are absolutely floored. There is no chance of saving face before that argument.

Indeed, to my mind, the world has gained a moral advantage over Germany by this war ten times greater than the tremendous physical advantage represented by the enforcement of a humiliating peace. For Germany had the whole world bluffed. By throwing up the sponge before her own soil was even touched, above all by surrendering ignobly the great fleet which had been her proudest boast, Germany punctured her own bluff. She did more than that; she

showed us that her heart is yellow. Even should she be allowed to build a fleet and an army greater than the fleet and army just dismantled, the world need never fear her again as it feared her before. Can you imagine the laugh that would be heard from Cape Horn to the North Cape if a new German navy should begin to brag about another Tag"? If their ships had gone out to fight a glorious losing fight, as the Spanish fought off Cuba, if their Kaiser had gone down at the head of his men in all his shining armor, there at least would have been a dramatic gesture, a brave tradition to build on. But the world knows now that

the Germans are a nation of quitters who lose no more gracefully at war than they lose at golf or tennis.

Germany is beaten, and Germany knows it. The rumors of a great army being secretly prepared for a new attack

on France are the purest poppycock. I doubt if the Germans could get together four army corps to-day. There are many men in uniform in Germany, but they are not an army. Most of them are wearing uniform because they have no other clothes. With the exception of the small force which still supports the Government, ali semblance of discipline is gone. Officers are stripped of the insignia of rank, and where it is necessary to get permission from military authorities to travel through Germany, in most cases the permission is given by private soldiers or their elected chiefs. As the Russian army rotted away, so is the German army rotting.

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The arrogant tone which has crept into the public speeches of some of Germany's political leaders lately is not an indication that they do not know they are beaten. On the other hand, this gance is the arrogance of sheer desperation. As they have seen Bolshevism advancing on the one hand, and have seen on the other hand attempts to enforce a peace based on bitterness, the Germans have tried to console themselves with the reflection that things could not possibly be worse, and, knowing they had nothing more to lose, have permitted themselves. to talk with the boldness of a man whose neck already feels the noose.

After asking whether the Germans are soundly beaten, the question people most frequently ask a man or woman who has been in Germany is whether it is true that the Germans are really suffering for want of food. Probably the persistence of some doubt on this point in the minds of some Americans is due to the reports of army officers from occupied Germany, where the food situation has greatly im proved since the occupation, or of officers who have been to Berlin or other large cities in Germany proper, but who have confined their observations to the luxurious hotels at which they invariably put up. The truth is that food in Germany is lacking both in quantity and variety, and that such food as there is is generally of poor quality and-even at good hotels poorly cooked. I had indigestion all the time I was in Germany. It may not be true that many people are dying of downright

starvation, although some undoubtedly are so dying; but thousands are dying of diseases which would never be fatal if the people had enough to eat-diseases like influenza, pneumonia, and tuberculosis. I have no statistics to prove how disease has increased in German cities, but I got the following statistics for the city of Prague, the capital of the Czechoslovaks, where conditions are noticeably better than in either Vienna or Berlin. In 1914 births exceeded deaths in Prague by .60. In 1917 deaths exceeded births by 9.14. And these deaths, be it remembered, were all among civilians; war fatalities are not included. In 1914 in Prague orphan asylums there were 2,018 patients, of whom 286 died. In 1917 there were 1,818 inmates, of whom 1,115 died; and in 1918 there were 833 patients, of whom 704 died. Conditions in the orphan asylums in Vienna and Berlin are even worse. In fact, the capital of the Germans and the capital of the Austrians are suffering more for lack of food than any other cities I have seen anywhere. And, as far as I can judge, the food shortage is about equally serious in Berlin and Vienna.

But in all other respects Vienna is far less unpleasant to live in now than Berlin. The Viennese bear their hardships with a sort of fatalistic melancholy, while the small minority of Berliners who have any money left are bent on ending their lives quickly in debauchery, and the great majority who have no money are going about robbing the minority who have, or are expressing their rage against society and fate in aimless anarchy. In Vienna there have been only a few shots fired in all the hard weeks since the armistice was signed, while in Berlin hardly a day passes without a battle, or at least a lively skirmish. Crime of all sorts walks abroad blatantly in the dark, dirty streets of Berlin. The whole capital is a camp of armed men who appear to be uncertain from what quarter their foe will strike, or even who their next foe will be. The workingmen are all armed, and most of the bourgeoisie have laid hold of some form of weapon against emergencies. Government troops march through the streets as they did during the war, and soldiers, in their "tin hats" or in the picturesque leather spike helmets that are so much appreciated by American girls as souvenirs when brought back by doughboys from the Rhine, guard all public buildings and all the big hotels.

troops can be counted on, however. While I was in Berlin, fortunately, the Spartacists not once attacked in the vicinity of this hotel, although there were several battles between them and Government troops in the suburbs, and once three American correspondents, one of them a woman, were fired on in their taxicab by a mob which took them to be Government people.

I lived at the Hotel Adlon, where there were fifteen or twenty American officers in Berlin on Government missions. Every night the great iron gate before the front entrance was reinforced with a heavy chain and two machine guns were posted a few feet behind it where they could rake the street from the cover of two small potted trees. The other entrances were also protected by machine guns, as was the roof, and soldiers armed to the teeth prowled about the corridors of the great hostelry all night long to guard against treachery or surprise. The loyalty of none of these Government

"What are the German people thinking about?" I asked an American newspaper man who had been in Berlin several weeks.

"I can best answer that," responded the newspaper man, " by telling you what a Russian peasant told me when I asked him a few months ago what the Russian masses were thinking about. What is a cow thinking about?' he replied, scornfully. Grass!'"

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Wherever an American goes in Germany he is stopped by people who ask the same old question, "When are you going to send us food?" Your elevator boy asks you that, your barber asks you, and your waiter, when he places before you the monotonous fare of Schweinefleisch, pota toes, and carrots, puts the same query.

With Lieutenant E. O. Wiederanders, an American officer in the courier service, I flew from Berlin to Munich in a German bombing plane after the HandleyPage model, driven by a German ace who had not made his kills unhindered, as his scarred face and body testified. We made three stops between Berlin and Munich once to fill up our gasoline tank, and twice to escape the cold, driving rain, which even through the leather helmets we wore stung our foreheads like bird shot. Although each time we landed in fields far from any big town, almost before we could get our helmets and goggles off the big plane was surrounded by a crowd of rustics, who seemed to spring from nowhere.

"When is America going to send us food?" they asked as soon as they recognized our nationality.

But so many postponements have there been in the delivery of this food, and so little of it is there arriving even now, that it is not uncommon to find a note of sarcasm in a German's voice when he speaks on this subject.

And, indeed, to an American in Germany or to one just returned from that country there seems to be an astonishing amount of misconception prevalent among the Allies as to what is Germany's real position. The truth is that the war is over and Germany thoroughly beaten. With thousands of Germans dying from lack of nourishment, can any name but plain inhumanity be given to the continuance of a blockade which prevents the Germans from catching fish in the North Sea for their hungry population? To listen to some of the talk that comes from the Peace Conference, particularly from French representatives, one would think that Germany was still a powerful, wellorganized military nation merely resting on her arms and likely to launch a new attack at any minute. Undoubtedly there

are some reactionary influences at work in Germany, undoubtedly it is necessary to be on guard against them. Undoubtedly, too, the suffering of Germany this winter is a wholesome moral lesson for her. But to keep German fishing boats from taking fish from the North Sea seems like carrying technicalities too far.

Either there will be a reasonably strong Germany or there will be a Bolshevist Germany. Take your choice. A reasonably strong democratic Germany may be a menace to France (although I do not believe that). But a Bolshevist Germany will be a very powerful menace to all the nations in the world as they are at present constituted.

It is difficult to base many prophecies for the future on the present situation in Germany. Conditions vary greatly in different parts of the country, and conditions vary greatly from day to day in the same parts of the country. I believe that it is by no means certain that Germany will not return to monarchy, although it is very unlikely that a Hohenzollern will ever reign again. I believe the present Ebert-Scheidemann Government, is very weak, and is growing weaker every day. I believe, on the whole, Spartacism or Bolshevism is growing stronger. But this movement is limited to the industrial districts a fact for which its opponents may be profoundly thankful, in Germany as in Russia. It is bitterly combated by the German Church and by the German farmers. And if, for instance, the city of Munich should set up an out-and-out Bolshevist Government, it could soon be starved into surrender by the surrounding agricultural regions of Bavaria. The Munich Bolshevists are well aware of this, and are therefore inclined to temporize. The fact remains that there is in Germany a growing mass of discontented citizens inclined to side with any active faction which promises them improved living conditions. Ebert is in the tragic position which Kerensky occupied before his downfall. The Russians demanded of Kerensky peace and food. Because he gave them neither his government was destroyed. The Germans are demanding of Ebert and Scheidemann peace and food. Ebert and Scheidemann seem unable to give the people either, but unless they soon succeed in getting these things for the people their Government will collapse. About the only generalizations on the internal situation in Germany which I feel reasonably safe in making are these three:

First, conditions in Germany will be worse before they are better.

Second, affairs have already reached a state where it is evident that Germany cannot be saved without foreign intervention. This intervention may take the form of economic assistance and revictualment, or military_occupation, or all of these measures. There are not a few Germans who would welcome the military occupation of their whole country by American and British troops. Occupation by the French and Belgians would be very unpopular. It does not seem likely that there will be any government in Ger

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many capable by its own strength of enforcing the provisions of the peace, or even of guaranteeing the proper distribution of such food supplies as might be sent to Germany.

Third, the peace terms to be enforced on Germany (and which will very likely be announced before this is published) ought

to be just, which means that they ought not to be as harsh as a good many would like to have them. To try to impose extreme conditions on Germany is not to the interest of the Allies-leaving aside the question of humanity and justice because to try to impose extreme conditions on Germany will simply have

the effect of throwing that country over irrevocably to the Bolshevists. Germany ought to be made to pay some indemnity, of course, but to try to get too much will simply result in getting nothing, and will lead to an extension of the epidemic of communism throughout Europe. Paris, March 26.

II-GERMANY: SLACKER AMONG NATIONS

BY ALEXANDER GREEN

The facts presented in the following article have been collected from a wide variety of sources, which have enabled Dr. Green (who is a graduate of Columbia University, is conversant with many languages, and has for several years been a close student of economic and political conditions in Central Europe) to see the situation in Germany in perspective. -THE EDITORS.

FEEDING AN ADVERSARY

Our adversaries the Germans continue
to be, for they object to the indemnities
and territorial cessions that are to be
required of them. Yet they demand un-
conditional supplies of food to be sent to
them immediately. These failing, the
spokesmen intimate, the nation will make
trouble by joining the Bolshevists of
eastern Europe.

At home, as it turns out, the people
who make this sort of threat have quite
other views on the way to deal with re-
calcitrants. According to a despatch, the
Minister of Foreign Supplies for the
State of Prussia announced the other
day that the state would cut off food
from districts where general strikes were
in
progress.

According to what the Germans tell
us, to refuse them food instead of mak-
ing them see reason will drive the nation
into Bolshevism. According to what the
Socialist leaders in Prussia practice, to
refuse food to cantankerous districts of
Germany will not spread Bolshevism in
those districts, but will on the contrary
make the disturbers see reason very
promptly.

In which case do the Germans merit belief?

-From the New York "Evening Sun,"
April 1, 1919.

THE plenipotentiaries of the German Government at Trèves and at Spa have been making the most of the bugaboo of Bolshevism that is soon to take complete mastery over Germany unless speedy aid is extended in the form both of foodstuffs for the masses and of raw materials for industrial purposes. They point out with increasing insistence that Germany is suffering from an industrial crisis, that the number of idlers has been growing with alarming rapidity, that there are strike meetings in all parts of the land, and that all this disturbance is the direct result of the Allies' blockade on raw materials and their unyielding ban on German exportation.

It is undoubtedly true that foodstuffs are scarce in Germany. It is equally true, however, that much of this dearth is the direct result of profiteering specu lation. With the exception of fatty substances and the products of foreign lands, there is at hand in Germany quite a considerable supply of native produce of all kinds. The crux of the situation is that this material is undistributed; it is hoarded both by the peasants whose shrewd minds

view with suspicion the actual currency value of the hyperinflated market prices, and by the get-rich-quick financiers who acknowledge fealty to no other power but the well-lined strong box. Let us not forget that for four years the German soil has sufficed to feed much larger populations and more exacting armies of men than it is obliged to do to-day.

But when we come to the question of raw material for the German industries, we meet with an entirely different situation. That is to say, it will be found that the absence of such material is by no means the only, or even the leading, cause of industrial idleness and its concomitant industrial disturbances. It will be found, on the contrary, from the evidence furnished by the German newspapers themselves, that the economic crisis is due rather to a psychological crisis now taking place within the German nation, to the workings not only of the torpor caused by the sudden defeat of their once powerful armies, but, more correctly, of the general feeling of lassitude and idleness that seems to be pervading every part of the land and weighing down like a terrible nightmare upon all effort at reconstruction. At the same time that the newspapers accuse the enemies of Germany of cherishing cruel designs upon her future and bewail the

blockade still in existence as to raw materials, they publish repeated appeals to their own nationals to return to work

and give their industries a fresh start! This fact alone probes right under the superficial wail and uncovers the real

cause of the social and economic unrest.

It is true that the number of idlers is rapidly increasing. In Berlin, according to latest reports, there were 95,216 unemployed on January 9, 130,570 on January 19, and 153,984 on January 29. In Bremen conditions are similar. For the identical dates this town registered 5,233, 7,042, and 9,392, respectively. And so on in Frankfort and other industrial centers. Quite recently an official German note estimated the number of un

employed throughout the Empire at one million, with Berlin itself having a quota of 250,000. But, in striking constrast to this situation, work is plentiful. That is, plentiful work is offered in all the papers. According to the "Berliner Tageblatt (December 22, 1918), however, the large

masses of demobilized soldiers prefer to roam about the land and be fêted as heroes. And so it is not strange to find the "Tag" (December 23, 1918) complain that six thousand soldiers in Munich go from barracks to barracks in search of food, when on the day the electric works opened in Walchensee, which are designed to furnish power to all of Bavaria, only two workmen presented themselves.

Instances of this unemployment directly due to idleness can be multiplied ad infinitum, and that out of the mouths of the Germans themselves. Here follow some additional reports: The "Münchener Neueste Nachrichten" of January 4 states: "In Munich about eleven thousand workless persons receive succor, when 3,724 places are being offered in the countryside, when the near-by factory at Trostberg seeks 1,000 operatives, and when practically all the coal mines complain that they cannot get miners in sufficient numbers." The "Frankfurter Zeitung" of the same date states that 50,000 persons are drawing upon the Berlin authorities for their sustenance, when 100,000 workers are sought for the lignite industry at places but a few hours distant from Berlin. But, to get even nearer to the facts, right in the city of Berlin, according to the "Welt am Montag" of January 16, the street car companies have not been able to find more than 350 out of the 1,000 workers sorely needed by them. Similarly, the sugar industries in Brandenburg are at a standstill and the beet already at the doors of the factories is allowed to rot for lack of workers.

Of extreme interest is the January 18 report of "Vorwärts" on the unemployment situation: "In Silesia and in Saxony the mines are in need of operatives. Bavaria announces a dearth in agricul tural help. In Mecklenburg, since the departure of the prisoners of war and of foreign workers, the lack of workmen is not being supplied by our returning soldiers." Foresters, woodcutters, stable hands, construction workers, kitchen servants, and a hundred other types of skilled and unskilled laborers are urgently wanted, but not obtained.

The situation is indeed so precarious that the newspapers themselves are dis

cussing the ways and means of applying

proper remedies. They point out that the high rate of financial aid given to the unemployed makes unemployment a convenient and lucrative condition to cultivate. They also insist that no entrepreneur can consistently be asked to undertake or even continue production if the present rate of salaries is to prevail. But what they can find no remedy for, while they all admit its existence, is a deep-seated aversion to work among the working classes.

In stating that unemployment has be come a veritable profession that supports its man better than if he worked, the "Simplicissimus" of January 7 brings a cartoon representing two workmen in front of an official bulletin offering employment in the mines near the resort of Walchensee. "Well, I don't know," says one of the men; "it's a good place for winter sports. I might yet have my unemployment allotment sent there for the coming months." And no wonder that idleness is so highly prized. In Munich the minimum for men per day is four marks, and for the women three. In adaddition the unemployed receive free theater and movie tickets as well as entrée to the concerts. And, with all this, the "Münchner Post" is in a position to be able to report that on January 7 a massmeeting passed a resolution demanding an increase in the indemnities to ten marks per day, and with retroactive fea

tures.

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It is thus possible, under present circumstances, for the allotment to exceed the salary received from steady occupations, so that even if the workman has accepted a position he is ready to desert it at a moment's notice, especially if his renewed demands are not properly heeded. That this situation is, in turn, the mother of multitudinous strikes, without much rhyme or reason, has been recognized by the Independent Socialists themselves. Witness the manifesto signed on January 2 by their leaders, Strobel, Hoffmann, and Rosenfeld: "Claims for increase in wages have of late become so frequent as to give rise to grave fears for the ruin of our productions. This can have for a result only unemployment, hunger, and misery. The exploitations of the state are conditioned by the same rules as those of private industries. Neither the railways nor the mines nor the other industries of the state can support much longer a condition of affairs under which the expenses are greater than the receipts."

The essential and outstanding fact is that Germany does not work any more. Germany has ceased to be the industrious land of painstaking artisans. The muchvaunted conscientiousness of the German workman is gone-gone at least for the time being. And this fact has been known and concealed-by the Germans since the end of 1918, when one of the Socialist Ministers in charge of economic reconstruction, August Muller, made his report on the economic situation and the

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Soldiers in the country idle away their time in inns and about the villages. They sell their arms and horses in order to keep up their indolent estate. Coal, wood, and quarry stones are in immediate demand for reconstruction. But there is no one or few to lift the snow, to fell the trees, or to break the stones, and the miners seem to have taken to strikes with a will and a vigor. It is asserted on every hand that it is useless to increase the wages when Germany becomes daily less able to produce. "It is an error," states a Berlin journal, "to believe that lack of raw materials is the only cause of the staggering unemployment. We can say without difficulty that a large number of workmen are voluntary idlers. Four years of the war has taken away the taste for work." ("Welt am Montag," January 19, 1919.)

A formal avowal of this fact has even been made by the official organ of the Berlin Government, "Vorwärts," January 18: "In certain branches of our economic life there are orders in quantities. But we are constrained to admit the regrettable circumstance that the production has, on account of voluntary suspensions of work, and due also to sabotage, taken a frightful slump. For instance, in a locomotive factory near Berlin where before the Revolution an engine was turned out every day, there has not been made a single locomotive during the entire month of December. The orders would have made full production possible and the need for raw materials was largely covered."

This same organ of Ebert and of Scheidemann, alarmed at the lawlessness, declares accordingly, on February 2, what no modern Socialist newspaper has ever been found to declare, namely, that if the present situation continues it would be regretted that the capitalistic constraint has been removed! In other words, the acknowledgment is made and documented that the Socialistic feeling of duty and responsibility towards the working classes offers no incentive to work, and that it has actually paid the workers to simulate unemployment.

Nor have the remedies proposed done away with the proved charms of otiose dignity. True, on January 24, 1919, the new governmental order was to take effect according to which the various communities are invited to withdraw assistance from those who refuse to accept work to which they are sent, even if the work is of a different profession and in a

strange locality, provided the' physical status of the men selected is satisfactory and the salary offered is not inferior to that prevailing in the communities themselves. This first step towards obligatory labor has since been found to be merely a paper measure. Workmen refuse to change their residence, refuse to be separated from their families and their friends, offer organized protest to all attempts at being "colonized" at strange places, and prefer to remain in the townships where, on one pretext or other, they can peacefully receive their allotment, instead of handling the spade, the rake, or the plowshare.

To conclude this survey, unemployment in Germany is not the result of lack of foodstuffs or of raw materials in industries so much as of a change, and a radical one at that, in the inner disposi tion of the German workman. The ancient discipline founded on the notion of "service" and dependence has been abolished. But the free discipline that Socialism is aiming to have each man impose upon his conscience, the notion of social service, in short, has not yet found its way into the proletariat cast of thought. Like Kundry, laborite Germany is müde, müde! The disillusionment of defeat, the sudden discovery that, instead of enormous indemnities from their enemies, they themselves were to be placed in bondage in order to expiate their crimes, have worked with all the malice and mischief of the incubus of discouragement. The Germans have, it is easily understandable, labored hard to realize the national dream of world-greatness. Their factories have belched incessant fire, their brows have been bathed in oceans of sweat. And all this to no avail. Is it to be wondered at, then, that but few give a moment's thought to the urgent need of work, that the large masses of workmen refuse to lend an ear to what they now term the "False Gospel of Labor "?

This one lesson, then, stands out supreme amid the clamor and clash of the Peace Conference politicians, a lesson out of the mouths of the Germans themselves, whining with fear or loud with impotent defiance as they now appear to us. When a goodly section of the German press demands that we incontinently send raw material and foodstuffs in unlimited quantities, an equally influential number of them admit that, having started the war with hopes of an economic, if not a political, domination of the globe, the German masses are unable to rise above the disillusionment of their defeat. The war has robbed them of their energies. In strange perverseness, they insist upon prolonging the obsequies and deepening the mourning. In short, together with Russia, they are the classic example of a nation of slackers. What Germany needs is not food or raw material so much as a sound pulling together of the individual nerves in order to overcome her ruinous national neurasthenia.

Supplementing the two foregoing articles, an editorial on page 12 discusses "What the World Owes Germany"

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