Der Deutsche correspondent. [volume] (Baltimore, Md.) 1841-1918, 1917-01-23

from her allies. She would have to
DC content, as she had to be content
after the Napoleonic wars, with
treating her loans as subsidies. A
gain in territory at the expense OF
Turkey, the colonies of Germany and
Of her Drotege poor little Belgium"
would remain were she successful.
But successful She would not be.
In considering the figures we have
given, it must be borne in mind that
the expenditures Of all tho Powers
started on comparatively low level.
This was especially true OF England.
The rate of expenditure has grown
month by month, and another year
OF war Win cost as much as the first
two.
But the governmental expenses
arc not all that we must look to- Let
us consider how the people are to
live. According to a report made
by Dr. Leonard Hill to the English
Ministry Of Munitions, and summar-
lied in the January Monthly Re-
view of our bureau of labor sta
tistics, with food bought wholesale
and prepared on the large scale, it
costs over fifty cents a day to keep
a munitions worker in shape for his
work. Consider what this means for
the country at large. There are forty
million people 20 be fed, all OF whom
need Just as good food as the muni-
tions worker or they will suffer de-
terioration. Let us assume that six
per cent. are children who can be fed
at half rates. Then to feed the peo-
pic on the bare health standard
would cost over S14, 100000 a day,
$5,110,000,00 q year, about one
third OF he total national revenue.
But food is, in general, neither
bought at Wholesale nor prepared on
a large scale. which makes the actual
expenditure required to keep the peo-
pie ft very much greater Besides
there is q considerable element in
the population which, even when re-
strictcd TO three courses, will cost
many times fifty cents a day to feed
II is safe to say that, at present, il
would take more than one-half Of
the national income to physiologi-
cally feed the people Physiologic
feeding is starving; people generally
like to eat. Where are the other ne
cessaries to come from in this time
of high and ever higher growing
prices? 1t cannot be done In an
other year England will collapse,
even without az invasion.
Germany has had to tighten her
belt to pull through, and has cheer
Efully done it. She has, at the same
time, SO organized or reorganized
her processes Of production and con-
sumption that by the end Of the war
she may be litter to be self-support-
ing than ever before. England is ex-
posed to a double danger arising
from the fact that the bulk of her
food is imported, which Germany is
free from. In the first place, Eng
J land has to face the fact that Cor
many is day by day cutting down
her transports. thus reducing the
food in her markets and raising its
price. Soon this process may be ac-
tual starvation in England In the
| second place, England has to pay for
1 what she buys abroad and this
makes her problem financial one
/ in a sense in which GermaRy's is not.
Germany could dispense with money
( tomorrow, and be not a whit worse
off, whilc England, buying so largely
abroad, must maintain the exchange
level or fan to ruin so much tho
more quickly.
The question no longer is, can Ger
many beat England. 1t is only, can
Germany hold her lines for year.
! England is beating herself.