NoTember 14, 1914 
LAND AND WATER 
/ 
The question of (6) petrol is much more compli- 
cated. In the first place, large stocks have already 
been accumulated through import by way of neutral 
countries. In the second place, there is a supply within 
the enemy's tenitorv, from the middle Carpathians— 
what are cidled the (ialician oil-fields. It is probable 
that at the moment of writing, a part of these are 
already occupied by the Eussian invasion ; but they 
are not j^ct all occupied. Further, there is a supply 
from Eoumania, the firms importing the petrol from 
this district being in German hands ; and as the supply 
lies in the southern part of the frontier between 
Hungary and Eoumania, it should be long before 
Eussian action coidd cut it off. Of the political 
accidents which may restrict this supply in the f utui-e, 
or may already have restricted it, I say nothing. I 
take the thing at its worst and conclude that the enemy 
still has a supply from the Galician field (though now 
restricted) and a full supply from the Eoumanian field. 
But even so, the shortage of petrol is already felt by the 
enemy. There are various indications of this ; some 
public, such as the sudden and rather desperate 
expedients used for foreign import ; some private, not 
to bo published, and in my opinion even more con- 
clusive. It must be remembered that, especially in 
the western field of war, the Germans have been utterly 
spendtlu-ift of this necessity. To use it regardless of 
the future was aU of a piece with that original claim 
or plan which envisaged an overwhelming, successful 
and immediate blow against France before autumn 
had aiTived. 
But there is a material, benzol, a by-product of 
coke and of the smelting work in Germany which, 
though not always with the same type of engine, 
covld in part i-eplace petrol. The inexhaustible 
mining industry of Germany would provide it. 
Unless, however, coal is to be used for this purpose 
alone, there is a restriction in the supply through the 
shutting down of so much of the metal industry. In 
August only 30 per cent, of the normal smelting was 
going on in the German Empire. To-day it must be 
very much less. 
One may sum up and say that of petrol, and 
even of a substitute for petrol, there is abeady a 
shortage, and that before next April, at the very latest 
■ — on condition that the blockade can be maintained 
strictly to that date — the shortage will be so severely 
felt as to affect the whole operation of the war. 
Now as to (c) rudder. Here there is necessarily 
a shortage of a peculiarly dangerous sort. Eubber 
does not keep. The wastage is enormous, especially 
(1) through the climatic conditions of winter (2) 
through the increasing badness of the roads as the 
campaign proceeds ; and the shortage is ah-eady very 
severely felt. No rubber will •reach the enemy 
territory so long as the British blockade is maintained. 
There is, of course, a large supply in the control of the 
Dutch, from their colonies (as there is of oil), but the 
normal imports and exports of a neutral are easily 
measured. Of all necessities in modern war this 
one of rubber is that which will perhaps be first and 
most seriously curtailed, and it is that lack which 
the enemy will first severely feel. 
2. — Now for the second categoiy, the materials 
■which only indirectly subserve an anny. They fall 
into two categories : (a) the material which dnectly 
supports a population — its food, clothing, building 
material, &c. ; (6) the material which is necessary to 
the continued industry of an industrial country and 
lacking which you create a gi-eat strain of unemi)loy- 
BQcnt. As to the first : — • 
(a) The enemy's population can feed itself : of 
that there is little doubt. The existing stocks are 
sufficient for a year's supply, and, though the areas of 
supply coidd be occupied by the enemy, the population, 
even urban, inhabiting those areas, will still be fed. 
The same is not quite so true of fabrics, for 
fabrics are confined to the industrial regions of the 
West and of the East, and it is precisely these that 
will feel the first shock of invasion, as we have seen in 
discussing the threat to Silesia. But we may fairly 
say that economic pressure will hardly come upon the 
enemy in the form of any severe restriction of his food 
or clothing, and his mateiial for housing is of course 
ample. 
{6) But when we come to materials necessary to 
his industry it is another matter. Here you have a 
whole host of things besides those which are directly 
useful as material to an armed force. And of those 
which are also useful to an anned force, many are 
necessary to industry as well. Take, for example, copper. 
For an ounce ©f this that you may need in the army, 
you want a great deal more than a pound for the vast 
electrical industry of Gennany. Further note that 
this electrical industry is largely centred in the capital, 
Berlin, upon the temper of which so very much depends. 
It is tme that Gennany has within her own territory 
vast stores of iron and of coal : but, for the rest, the 
mass of her industry is supported, as is that of all 
industrialised Europe, on imports of material from 
over sea ; and when those imports fail Germany, her 
manufactoiies shut dowTi. Note that this factor of 
" unemployment " is modified first by the fact that 
the great bulk of those employed wiU be used as 
soldiers, and secondly by the fact that it is not in any 
absolute economic sense necessary, even to an industrial 
nation at war, that it should continue to be industrially 
producing, unless, indeed, it can only get its food 
(as we do) by exporting the manufactured material. 
Germany can live, though haixUy, without exporting 
manufactured material to pay for food. 
But though there is no absolute necessity in pure 
economic theory for Germany to fail through unem- 
ployment, there is something pretty well amounting 
to a necessity. When the older men and the lads and 
the women are thrown out of employment, it is, as 
has been seen, a tremendous piece of staff -work in an 
industrial coimtry to organise their food and clotliing 
and housing during a campaign. It is too big a piece 
of work to be practicable. And the pressure which the 
blockade wUl produce in this fashion is perhaps an 
even more important thing than the pressure it will 
produce upon the supply of the armies. 
THE GERMAN STATISTICS OF OUR 
LOSSES IN PRISONERS. 
I gave last week an analysis estimating the 
minimum of what seemed to be the total losses to 
date of the Germanic Powers. I said at the same time 
that an estimate of the corresponding losses upon the 
Allied side was not advisable in public interest, but 
that anyone who chose to use similar methods for 
making a comparison of his own in private would not 
be discouraged by the result. 
As the Germans have since then given official 
lists of the total number oi prisoners yvhom they claim 
to be present in Germany, taken from the Allied 
forces, one element in the problem is public property, 
and I will, with my readers' leave, closely analyse 
these figures. They have for us a two-fold importance. 
First, they enable us to gauge something of the state 
of mind of official Germany ; secondly, they will be 
useful to us (especially a little later on) in the contnist 
9* 
