New-York tribune., 1918-01-27

and therefore more ineligible to our
men and better liked. instruction
which comes through an interpreter
must lose something Of its acute and
stimulativc qualities. Despite all handi-
caps, however, things are moving along
with our army in France. The encr-
getic initiative Of the younger officers
and the soldiers, as in Cuba, is assert
Ing itself.
If America can live up to her
promised programme Of 10000 aero
planes in France by next spring" the
German threat of 1918 can be met
and defeated without her soldiers, for
the aeroplanc will put out the eyes Of
the German heavy artillery-thc most
forbidding element of the German
forces, and hold the supremacy OF the
air for the Allies.
But 10000 aeroplanes do not, as pop
rlar fancy pictures, mean cloud Of
that number in the air all the time. 1t
means about $500 in the air and 25,-
600 men on the job continuously-on
man in the machine and nine on the
ground for every plane. And it means
Also unceasing replcnishment-for the
wastage on the Western front has been
about 60 per cent month.
AS against our loudly proclaimed
building programme-the British are
building $4,000! "Slow Old England"
While I was in France last month the
Germans added thirty divisions, drawn
from Russia, to their forces Of the
West front, and were still bringing
them.
The French army contains two and
one-half millions Of young, unmarried
men, representing the four last
classes, fully alive to the Boche
menace, and keen to destroy it. 1t has
never been in better shape or spirit or
so we'll taken care Of as now. The
ooilu has the newspapers daily brought
to the trenches. the Red Cross canteens
supplies are excellent and steady and
the transportation service gets him to
his destination quickly.
German success in this war would
mean the end of Switzerland as an in
dependent, economic state.
So. long as Germany has possession
of the iron fields around Metz there
will never be peace on this earth
Except for its 80 per cent bread (and
most tasteful bread it is, too), one finds
no suggestion of food conservation at
the restaurants of the first class in
Paris, where meals are bountcous and
costly. But it is none the less true
that in the average French family and
in the daily private life of the average
Frenchman there is every manifesto
tion of a spirit to help in the general
conservation movement by eating and
spending sparingly. The average
French family is, in fact, eating less
and paying more for it than at any
time since the beginning of the war.
All prices have increased about 60
Ger cent, with coal at about $40 a ton,
and hard to get. Recently cakes, bread
and butter have been forbidden in tea
houses, and in the present month new
regulations are promised closing con-
fectionery and pastry shops, prohibit
ing the private use Of automobiles, and
limiting the per capita daily bread ra-
ton to 200 grams.
Conservation in France comes only
as the result of legislation. Unlike the
English or Americans that individually
may practise sclf-dcnal to set an ex-
man awaits the command. He views
such voluntary and scattered action as
waste effort. lie is quite ready to take
his chance of death when called on, but
when he is in town he likes his full
course meal. The French may fuss
over details, but they are on the mark
when the gun goes off. They may
grumble, but at heart there is never a
qualm. They always respond.
There are trustworthy reports in
France that food conditions in Ger
many arc becoming serious, though no
one over there places any dependence
on food or economic situations to bring
Germany to terms that do not fit into
her ambitions.
The wife Of Hollander told me in
Paris that on their way from The
Hague last September they had spent
few days with the German mother Of
her husband in Berlin. She said gen
cral foodstuffs were vigorously hus-
banded and expensivc; that meat, and
especially fats, were to be had only on
occasions and at high cost; that the
people she met in the homo Of her
mother-in- n-law, in the shops and in the
houses Of the mothers friends were
praying for the end of the war, and ap-
peared to have begun to doubt the
"divine mission" Of their Kaiser to
dominate the world
France IS not and America must not
be led to false or too comforting con-
illusions by these reports Of distress
which arc always coming out Of Ger.
many. There undoubtcdIy is suffering,
but tnerc is also VIDE difference and
many months of bitter fighting between
feeling the pinch of scarcity and being
"starved" into suhmissio And Ger
many. by the most authentic accounts
and her own acts, has yet a long way to
20 before she arrives at such state.
Austria's condition is unqucstionablv
less happy than Germany's Economic
and food problems threaten; the desire
Tor peace grows and may cause trouble
IT signal success does not come shortly
to the Central Powers
Vienna reports twice as manv dcaths
IN 1917 from tuberculosis as in 1919
which the chief medical officer attrib,l
utcs to increasing war pressure" and
"lnsufficient and unnourisning food"
which have undermined the physical
strength and resistance Of the people.
In the division of Central Power
spoils of war Austria wants Poland.
but Germany knows that if she hands
Poland to Austria it. will give pre-
pondcrancc Of Slav in the Austrian
body polite, which Germany does not
want. Therefore, Germany is between
thc horns-on one hand to lose control
OF the Austrian legislative body through
the Slav majority. or on the other to
d1splease Austria, already on the ragged
edge. Meanwhile, the menace Of Xus-
TRAN troops on the West front is NOT
taken too seriously by the Allies. Thcv