Art. 9.-GERMANY'S FOOD SUPPLY.

THE German Empire, ever since its creation, has been confronted by the alternative presented to Great Britain three quarters of a century earlier: whether to remain an agricultural state, independent of supplies of food from outside, or to embark on a manufacturing career and lose, more or less, its power to feed itself. It is this vital issue that has been at the bottom of that struggle between the agrarian and industrial classes which has formed the substance of its subsequent internal history; not a difference in economic intelligence, not even collision of pecuniary interests, but a far-reaching divergence of view as to ultimate ideals. So late as the beginning of the 'seventies, Germany still sent out more food than it brought in. As in the case of England, the impulse towards industrial development came from the newly-realised possession of vast deposits of coal and iron. But the economic advisers of the German Government have had the experience of England before their eyes as warning as well as example; ready as they were to promote manufacture, they were also anxious not to sacrifice agriculture. The Empire naturally started with a Prussian bias, the bias of the land-owning squire; and this agrarian leaning was confirmed by the electoral influence of the peasants, who still held in their hands two-thirds of the German soil. Accordingly the German Government has sought to promote equally both manufacture and agriculture; to protect squires and peasants by corn duties and advance agricultural improvement in all sorts of ways, and at the same time to build up by tariffs and subsidies a great export trade in manufactured products. That this policy of preserving agriculture has enjoyed a large measure of success, no one can now doubt. Germany during the war has been by no means completely successful in feeding herself, but she has been far more successful than this country could have been, if our navy, like theirs, had been driven off the seas.

Complete self-sufficiency, however, in the matter of food is not really compatible, for a country of Germany's size and natural resources, with a great foreign trade. A nation that sends out exports must receive imports to pay for them; and if, like Germany of late years, it also

invests capital abroad, the earnings of that capital must also be received in the form of imports. These imports, in the case of Germany, inevitably consist mainly of raw materials and food. And, as trade brings prosperity and prosperity brings population, the growing population supplies a fresh motive for enlarging imports.

With raw materials-cotton, wool, rubber, copper and so on-we have here nothing to do. But, as to food, let us look at what Germany actually was obtaining from outside before the war; working for the present from the official figures which, as we shall see later, certainly magnify Germany's share in feeding itself, and taking an average for the five years 1909-1913. Rye is still the chief bread-corn of Germany; and Germany in late years has supplied its own needs and had a small surplus to export. But wheat has steadily been coming into more general use, alone or mixed with rye; and of this so large an amount was brought from outside that of the total supply of bread-corn, on the showing of the official figures, quite one-ninth was imported. Of this almost the whole came from overseas or from Russia. It might be argued that the deprivation of a ninth would not be anything very terrible, on the supposition (a large supposition) that the remaining eight-ninths were so shared that the poorer classes did not specially suffer. Bread, after all, accounts only for about one-sixth of the foodbill of the German working classes. But we must go on to observe that well-nigh half the barley used in Germany was also imported, coming almost wholly from Russia. The demand for barley had been growing by leaps and bounds, almost entirely for the fattening of pigs in the northern provinces; and it was this which had contributed, more than anything else, to the gratifying increase in the per-head consumption of meat. When war broke out, it was as clear as anything well could be, that either an exceptionally large number of pigs would have to be slaughtered pretty soon-which meant cheap pork for the time and dear pork later-or some other fodder must be found. Nor was barley the only fodder cut off. For the same purpose of fattening pigs Germany made use of large quantities of maize, a grain which it hardly produces at all; and seven-eighths of this maize

came from Russia or from countries across the Atlantic. For another purpose, the feeding of milch cows, Germany supplemented the bran output of its own mills by importing every year more than a million and a quarter tons, three-fourths from Russia and overseas; and also added to its home-made oil-cake considerably over half a million tons from Russia and America.

It was reckoned by a competent authority before the war that the cessation of fodder imports would involve a decrease in the supply of meat to one half. And the less meat and milk the German people were able to get, the more they would be thrown back upon bread. If the war should last into a second year, a further serious consideration would present itself-namely, the stoppage of the imports of Chili saltpetre. Fifty per cent. of the marked improvement during the last two decades in the quality of the harvest was attributed to the employment of artificial manures. Of such manures far the most necessary are those containing nitrogen, both because they have most direct effect upon the crop, and because the supply has to be annually renewed. And of artificial nitrogenous manures Germany got half its supply from Chili. A method had indeed recently been devised by which nitrogen could be separated from the atmosphere by means of electricity, producing a substitute for Chili saltpetre under the name of nitrolin. But the manufacture in Germany was still in its infancy; and to obtain any large supply of nitrolin before it was wanted in March or April the Government would have to take the matter in hand seriously at once.

In the food-bill of the industrial classes in German towns, meat, in its various forms, is considerably the largest item-about 28 per cent. of the whole. Bread and dairy produce are each something over 16 per cent.; and these three main items between them account for over three-fifths of the whole. In ordinary times other articles are only of minor importance; but, when staple foods go up greatly in cost, the housewife looks round for substitutes. And therefore there are some lesser facts that cannot be disregarded. Rice, for instance, had been steadily coming into favour in Germany; but more than three quarters of the import came from British India. Eggs are a natural substitute for meat; but two

as it

out of five came from abroad, and about half of these from Russia and enemy countries. And as soon was desired to replace butter by margarine, the British origin of two-thirds of the palm nuts and copra would make itself felt.

The knowledge of these facts occasioned, before the war, gloomy reflections in Germany itself among those most competent to form an opinion. But it is significant of the psychological situation that in certain circles the most confident optimism had recently become prevalent. There were three lines of argument. First and foremost it was held that in its abundant potato crop Germany possessed a national food reserve. Next it was urged that the cessation of German sugar exports would set free a large amount of food for domestic use; and, lastly, that by imposing restrictions on breweries, distilleries and starch factories, additional quantities both of grain and of potatoes could be secured for bread. All that would be necessary would be a readjustment, a redistribution, of food-stuffs between the various uses.

So long as the argument remained in the region of tons, this was all quite plausible. But as soon as it was asked what were the relative feeding values of the several foods, the solution of the national problem ceased to be so easy. Foods contain, in various proportions, three constituents, now commonly known as protein, carbohydrates, and fats. All All these contribute the driving power or energy which is required to keep the human machine in healthy activity. But the building-up of the machine itself in youth, and the constant maintenance of it when adult by the replacement of wear and tear, can only be secured by supplies of protein. And potatoes contain not one-fifth of the protein furnished by rye meal, hardly more than a seventh of that in wheat; while sugar provides no protein at all. Moreover, as the residues from the breweries and distilleries which are used for feeding cattle retain from two-thirds to threequarters of the original protein of the grain, to lessen their supplies of corn would involve a shrinkage of the available fodder of a peculiarly dangerous character. Schemes of food redistribution, in short, might very well turn out to be attempts to eat one's cake and have it too.

Accordingly, as soon as the German armies had been

driven back from Paris, writers set to work to see if they could not make out a good case even in terms of protein. Absolute 'objectivity' is rare enough at any time, and we can hardly expect it when the future of nations is at stake. In this case, however, the broad facts are hardly open to dispute; and a brief analysis of them is not only reassuring so far as the cause of the Allies is concerned but may mitigate the exaggerated respect entertained for German scientific thoroughness.

Far and away the most important publication on the subject has been one edited by a Dr Eltzbacher, under the title 'Die deutsche Volksernährung,' and dated Dec. 12, 1914. Dr Eltzbacher is at present Rector of the Commercial College at Berlin, though he had not previously enjoyed any particular reputation as a writer on economic or commercial subjects. But he managed to collect a strong team of experts. None of the famous Berlin economists-Schmoller, Wagner or Sering - curiously enough, were to be found in it; but it included several men of eminence in physiological, agricultural and statistical science. Dr Eltzbacher doubtless put the argument into literary form, and that with no little skill. It is no wonder that, in a country where the expert is so highly esteemed, such a publication has carried a great deal of weight. So far as the German Government has worked on any consistent view of German resources, it is here that it is to be found. A summary was printed in the Lancet' in February, and an English translation ('Germany's Food: Can it last?') has just been published by the London University Press.

The energy-giving properties of food (commonly measured in calorics) we need not stop to consider; of the energy-supply Germany, a year ago, hardly seemed likely to go short, owing to its large crop of sugar-beets; though even the sugar supply has lately occasioned some anxiety. Confining our attention, however, to the indispensable protein, we find that Herr Eltzbacher's book, as the result of a series of elaborate calculations, manages to reach a comforting conclusion. Even if thrown entirely on its own resources, Germany, it is announced, would have almost all the protein it needed. It would need per year 1,605,000 tons; it could