eat slaughter early in the war gave a false optimism not only
to Germans, but also to visitors. If you have the curiosity to
look back at newspapers of that time you will find that the great
plenty of pork was dilated upon by travelling neutrals.

To-day the most tremendous efforts are being made to increase the
number of pigs. You will not find much about this in the German
newspapers--in fact what the German newspapers do not print is
often more important than what they do print. In the rural
districts you can learn much more of Germany's food secrets than in
the newspapers.

In one small village which I went to I counted no fewer than thirty
public notices on various topics. Hers is one:--

FATTEN PIGS.

Fat is an essential for soldiers and hard workers.
Not to keep and fatten pigs
if you are able to do so is treason to the Fatherland.
No pen empty--every pen full.

These food notices may be necessary, but they are bringing about
intense class hatred in Germany. They are directed at the small
farmer, who in many cases has killed all his pigs and most of his
cows, because of his difficulty in getting fodder. As I have said,
the great agrarian junkers, the wealthy landowners of Prussia, have
in many cases more cows, more pigs, more poultry than before the
war.

The facts of these great disparities of life are well known, and if
there were more individuality in the German character they would
lead to something more serious than the very tame riots, at several
of which I have been present.

That the food question is the dominating topic in Germany among all
except the very rich, and that this winter will add to the
intensity of the conversations on the subject, is not difficult to
understand. Most of the shopping of the world is done by women,
and the German woman of the middle class, whose maidservant has
gone off to a munition factory, has to spend at least half her day
waiting in a long line for potatoes, butter, or meat.

There is a curious belief in England and in the United States in
the perfection of German organisation. My experience of their
organisation is that it is absolutely marvellous--when there are no
unexpected difficulties in the way. When the Germans first put the
nation on rations as to certain commodities, the outside world
said, "Ah, they are beginning to starve!" or "What wonderful
organisers!"

As a matter of fact, they were not beginning to starve, and they
were