i6 
LAND & WATER 
March 15, 1917 
b, c and d of the new green potato cards. On each of. the 
4 coupons 16 of the supplementary potato card 100 grm. 
of baker's goods will be served. 
***** 
The commune of Treptov will distribute in the week 
b -ginning February 12th barley, coflee on coupon T ; 
jam. syrup and arlilicial hont'y on No. 3 ; macaroni ana 
Haked oats on N<j. 4 ; als.i mackerel, pickled liaddock, 
and 3 lbs. of potatoes or ()oo grm. of flour ; 200 grm. of 
flour on No. 5 of the provision-card, and 4 lbs. of kohlrabi 
on No. 6. 
Tne mere Enj^lish brain reels before such complexity 
as this, but e\-ervwhere there appears to be similar 
elaboration, and everywhere these elaborate regulations 
are constantl\- being amended by the issue of fresh regula- 
tions. As a Socialist paper, Die Neue Zeit, writes in 
January last : " One would have fuel for a whole winter 
if one had merely all the paper wasted on rules and 
regulations." 
Yet these elaborate and constantly revised regulations 
have utterly failed to secure the objects aimed at. On 
February loth the Leipzigcr Volkszcitung writes bitterly 
of the position of the poor as compared with -the rich : 
Anyone can have so-called foreign butter by paying 8 to 
12 marks per lb. Not a few families have a superabund- 
ance of milk, butter and cheese, while the children of the 
poor go hungry, and even the hospitals are short. Those 
who have money and space at their disposal keep their 
own cow, and its milk makes up for the want of other 
fats . . . .Unless the system of distribution is im- 
proved, the power to " carry on " and the feeding of the 
nation after the war will be endangered. 
In Wiirtemberg the Minister of the Iriterior is planning 
an extensive new organisation " to inspire the agri- 
cultural population with greater willingness to deliver 
their stock of foodstuffs." In Berlin bitter complaints 
have been made by the press and by the milk retailers 
ot the insufficient supply and the bad quality of the milk 
sent in from the country. In February negotiations 
took place between the " Greater Berlin Fat Office and 
the State Fat Ofiice on the milk regulations for Berlin 
and its suburbs." As a result the price offered to the 
producer was raised. 
Sugar is a special subject of anxiety in Germany. In 
our own country we are told that any incon\'eniences we 
suffer in the supply of sugar are due to our failure to 
stimulate the cultivation of sugar beet. Germany before 
the war was a gigantic producer of sugar. Her production 
was probably at least twice her consumption. Yet 
to-day there is a serious shortage. The sugar growers 
allege that this is due to Government action in limiting the 
price of sugar to a non-profitable figure. To try to deal 
with the situation a new Government office was created 
in Prussia as recently as February 15th. It is called the 
State Sugar Bureau, and its business is to act as inter- 
mediary between the Imperial Sugar Office and the 
Prussian Communal Unions. 
The tale might be extended indefinitely. Already the 
English public has learned chat a fierce quarrel has 
blazed out between the Prussian Government and the 
Imperial German Government with regard to the regula- 
tion of food supplies. A Prussian State Commissary 
was appointed in February to co-operate with the 
-Imperial Food Dictator, HeTr Batocki. Within less than 
three weeks the}-, were openly at war with one another. 
Perhaps like Mr. Prothero and Lord Devonport, they 
could not agree on the meaning of the words maximum 
and minimum. 
Sugar 
The evidence is overwhelming that the German 
attempt to meet the shortage of food by limiting prices 
in the professed interest of the masses has completely 
failed. Happily our own position is much better thaii 
that of Germany, largely b.^causc we are not dependent 
on home-grown supplies. In spite ol German submarines 
we still draw nearly half our foodstuffs from over the 
seas, and up to the present our Government has not 
committed the supreme folly of discouraging the over- 
sea producer by limiting the price at which his produce 
can be sold here. On the contrary, so far as meat, wheat 
and sugar are concerned the Government, since the early 
days of: the w-ar,?has itself taken an active, and on the 
whole well-planned part, in securing supplies and securing 
their conveyance to this country. 
The nniddle that has arisen in this countr\' in the case 
of sugar is entirely due to the mistaken methods em- 
ployed by the Government in the distribution of the 
sugar after they had bought it abroad and landed it 
here. Instead of putting up the price of the sugar so as 
to restrict demand, the (iovernment decided to assign 
to every distributfTr a proportion of the supply he had 
required in the last peace year. The inevitable result 
has been that shopkeepers have taken measures of their 
own for restricting demand. If a grocer has only 100 lb. 
of sugar and 150 customers each wanting i lb., "he must 
in some way or anothe^ choke off the extra 50. The 
obvious and the fairest way is to put up the price. That 
would induce some people to be content with half a 
pound, others w ith a quarter ; and the sugar would go 
round. But this being forbidden, the grocer has pro- 
tected himself by refusing to sell sugar except to cus- 
tomers who buy other goods. As a necessary conse- 
quence many poor people have been deprived of the 
chance of getting any sugar at all. Yet the poorest 
person would sooner pay even sixpence for a quaj-ter of 
a pound of sugar than be turned away empty, while 
richer people were carrying off two' pounds for a shilling. 
Incidentally, a raising of the price, while bringing justice 
to the poor, would have brought revenue to the State, 
for the Government owns all the sugar imported. 
Potatoes 
In the case of potatoes, the blunder is more compli- 
cated, and the regulations issued by the various depart- 
ments concerned vary so rapidly that it is impossible to 
keep count of them. It can, however, be said with 
confidence that the (iovernment has made almost every 
conceivable blunder. It has made frantic appeals to 
the public to plant more potatoes, with the result that a 
lot of seed potatoes will be planted by incompetent 
amateurs in unsuitable ground, and will be wasted ; it 
frightened farmers by first fixing a maximum price for 
future crops too low for profit, and then issuing hopelessly 
absiu'd regulations about the price of seed potatoes ; 
fuially, although a grave shortage is in sight, it has 
encouraged the public to consume more by forcing re- 
tailers to sell at low prices. As always, it is the poor 
who suffer. Ministers who do not, have to fetch the 
materials for their daily meals do not realize what it 
means to the poor to stand for hours in a long queue 
waiting for the chance of being able to buy a pound of 
potatoes at the Government price. Apart from the 
hardship to the individual, the economic loss to the 
nation of this queue system is a very serious factor when 
all our strength is needed to win the war. On the one 
liand the Director of National Service clamoitrs for 
every. man and woman to do useful work ; on the other 
hand, the Food Controller compels large numbers of 
people to waste half days or whole days waiting, perhaps 
in vain, for a pound of potatoes. 
The whole trouble arises from a refusal to use the 
instrument of price as a means of harmonising demand 
with supply. It is the best instrument that the wit of 
man has ever been able to devise ; it works auto- 
matically and, on the whole, it works more fairly for the 
■poor than any other instrument. Undoubtedly the 
poor suffer more than the rich by rising prices. But the 
people who lay stress on that obvious fact forget that if 
prices are not allowed to rise some other device must 
be employed to cut down demand, and in practice all 
these other devices are even more hurtful to the poor 
than a rise of price. 
The problem of poverty must be dealt with as a thing 
apart. What the poor "want is more money, not the 
chance of buying potatoes or sugar at a low price after 
wasting half a day's earnings. Happily, at the present 
time, the poor are relatively few, and it is not difficult to 
devise means for relieving the wants of those who would 
be reduced to real distress by rising prices. For the 
rest of the community a rise of price is the best thing 
that can happen in our present economic situation. It 
will on the one hand check consumption, on the other 
hand encourage production. By this double influence 
it safeguards the food of the nation. 
