Albuquerque morning journal. [volume] (Albuquerque, N.M.) 1903-1926, 1919-02-14
ALLIES To FEED
GERMANS UNTIL
CAN FEED SELVES
People viii Be Kept From
Starving But No Large
Stores of Food To Be Sent
to Country by the Entente.
BY Lincoln Eyre.
Copyright, 1919, by the Press Publish
ing Co
CThe New York World,)
Especial Cable Dispatch to TIE World

anu Albuquerque Journal)
Paris, Feb l3.-Dospite the enthu-
slastic reports in circulation Friday
night, from which it appeared that a
definite program for getting food
stuffs to Germany on permanent la
sis had been drawn up by the allies,
further inquiry reveals the fact that
the measures adopted are merely of
q temporary nature.
The decision of the allies, promul-
gated through the nteralied food
commission at Spa, is now shown to
provide the Germans with only
enough food for a couple of weeks.
After that period no further ship
ments have been arranged for. Thus
the action taken is seen to be OF a
makeshift character designed to re-
assure the German people that the
promise to keep them from starvation,
providing they keep themselves from
anarchy, will be fulfilled, and to ena-
bic British wholesalers to reduce the
surplus fats they accumulated before
the war ceased
Allowance Fixed.
The allowance fixed for the Ger
mans by the supreme war council
weeks ago was 140,000,000 pounds of
pork products, 10000 tons of con-
dcnsed milk and 10000 tons of cereal
per month. What they will now re-
ceive from British sources IS 60,00O,-
600 pounds Of bacon and 4 900 tons Of
condensed milk, Il supply sufficient
for less than a fortnight according
to tie war council ration scale. More
over it includes no grain shipment
whatever.
Meanwhile the question of how to
revictual some 100000 Germans,
residents of the big cities and the in
dustrial centers whose reserve stocks
are fast leaching the vanishing point,
remains unanswered.
There is no denial of the dark as
pect of things east of the Rhine
among the allied authorities here.
have found a general acceptance of
the conviction ] reached after my
trip through Germany las December
that by March the lack of flour,
fats and milk will become acute
there. Yet no practical plan for
shipment of food into Germany. not
even a formula upon which such a
plan could he based, has been framed
thus far.
The supreme council of relief and
supply has bsen issuing smoothly
worded CommuniQucS concerning the
harmonious fashion in which the ar
engagements are being concluded for
the feeding of the Poles, CzeCho-SlO-
walks ana Jugo-Siavs, but not word
IS forthcoming as to what is being
done to keep the Bolshevik wolf from
the door in enemy territory.
Disorders Would Result.
The supreme war council does not
dispute the fact that a hunger cpl
demic among the Germans would lead
to disorder that might prevent the
formation of a stable government and
bring about an economic and idus-
trial collapse which would mean a
state of anarchy swayed by Bolshe-
vism. If this came to pass, the impos-
sibility of finding responsible sigma
tories to the covenants of peace among
our enemies is obvious. And with
Lenin destructiVism rampant just be-
yond the zone occupied by the allied
armies, France, and indeed all of
western Europe, including the British
isles, would be exposed to perils quite
as catastrophe as thoseof Hohenzol-
lerrism. The existence of these threat
ening eventualities is admitted by
statesmen assembled here to contro-
vert them, yet thus far no decisive
counter measures have been taken or
agreed upon.
Meanwhile, in the words of very
distinguished student of the situation,
Europe is heading straight toward
the outstanding obstacle to the formu-
lation of a method for relieving the
desperate food shortage in Germany
in the difficulty of hitting upon a
means of extracting payment for the
food sold to the Germans.
Nothing to Pay With.
The entente governments and the
United States as well refuse to per-
nit an enemy power to devote to
purchase of foodstuffs any gold or
other assets, including such collateral
as liens on industrial plants which
might be levied upon for war indem-
mites. Nor can the Germans pay for
their food through private loans float
ed in the United States by individ-
ual American firms, because of the
blockade and regulations governing
commercial relations with the enemy.
In some quarters here it has been
suggested and indeed urged with con-
siderable insistence THAI the United
States government should advance a
fund to the German government with
which German importers could pay
the food bill. This loan would then
become part of the general pool of
claims against Germany to be settled
through indemnity payments. The Eu-
ropean authorities who proposed this
scheme apparently overlooked the
manifest impposSibility of getting
public opinion in America to agree to-
such transaction, even if the admin
istration at Washington was faVorab'yI
inclined toward it. The obvious UNI
feasibility of the proposal has been
made plain to its sponsors by Ameri-
ca'c represpntat ivec in Paris