The news scimitar. (Memphis, Tenn.) 1907-1926, 1920-09-27
BEN|GHTED POLAND
FACES PROBLEMS
OTHER THAN WAR
Harvest Cut This Year to so
Per Cent of Normal and
Coal Is SCarCe-SpeCtre Of
BolSheviSm Appears.
BY JOHN {. LATHRoP.
American Political Advisor TO Polish
Government. Written for the In.
transitional News Ear.yiea

ternational News Service.
LONDON. Sept. 27.--Even although
miracle of unusually good fall
weather intervene. Poland will this
year reap a harvest of only about sc
per cent of normal yield. Riding
through Poland one sees vast reaches
OF the hinterland a picture of heart
breaking conditions The grain in
field after field lies flat on the
ground. untouched by cradle, scythe
or sickle. Occasionally one sees a
group of women and children--little
girls, often--wearily trying to save
enough to feed the peasant family In
the coming winter. But in an enor-
nous number of instances Ii will be
impossible TO salvage enough to en-
able the peasant farmer to sell food
for the support of the city popula-
tons.
One and third millions of men and
boys--often they are lads OF IL or
l3-have gone to the wars. and in
stead Of producing to feed others.
must themselves be fed, while they
idle in camp or go on leave to the
city. there to be further disorgan-
ized and rendered ill-content with
the life of the quiet Polish peasant
farm with its gracefully nodding
hoilyhocks and it's soft pastoral beau
ties.
II there he not food In this coming
winter, then. perhaps, the danger of
communism, Bolshevism, win become
an accomplished fact. The normal
Pole In not disposed toward Bolshe-
Nism. first. because the land owning
peasant predominates; second, be-
cause Poland is a Catholic country,
30 per cent OF the people processing
that faith, However there Is in the
opinion OF discerning observers a
danger that communism win gain u
Roadway In Poland and sweep away
the conservatism Of that people, Civ
ing to Poland government which
will be In effect a social and eeonom-
&c annexation to soviet Russia,
No Hoover Supplies.
Last year 1t was Herbert Hoovers
enterprise which saved the situation.
Mr., Hoover sent or caused to be sent
more than s50.000.000 Of supplies. in
Guiding fats. sugar. flour and raw cot
ton for the Lodz textile plants, This
year there is no Hoover to supply the
deficiency on any such scale.
Last March the greatest Polish
statistician, Professor Eugene Romer,
of Limberg university, told me thar
this years crop would be smaller
than that of last year. Since then
the Polish thrust into the Ukraine,
the furious fighting back onto Polish
soil and the taking of half million
more swept by the scourge of battle.
have created situation worse than
that predicted by Professor Romer,
Even although the full crop had
been saved, II would have been in
sufficient to feed Poland. because
there has not been enough OF arti-
fetal fertilization, Yet Poland has
large deposits Of potash, and moth
ing practical has been done to hasten
the utilization of ii. In posen prov
ince are nitrate fixation plants, built
by the Germans, yet little or nothing
has been done to rehabilitate those
plants. Notwithstanding potash. nj
trate salts and phosphoric acids are
absolute essentials to renewed pro-
of Polish lands.
II the prospective food situation
was bad in March. what of 1t now.
after the subtraction of such i'm
mense man power from the farms and
The struggling of large armies several
times across the growing crops in
70 many sections?
Production of coal. too. Is not suf-
'ieient to provide enough coal for the
winter. And the supply of coal prom
Ised some time ago has been de-
creased by the disorders In Upper
silesia, millions of tons of coal so
sorely needed having been cut from
The mines production. So that fuel
the house warming will be scant and
lowered industrial production and
hampered transportation will in
crease unemployment.
Four spectres, then, stalk that land