The Iron Ration Part 8

The case was rather interesting. Here was an absolute government that was more impotent in its dealings with its subjects than const.i.tutional Austria was. But the Mecklenburg farmers were of one mind, and that quality is often stronger than a regularly established const.i.tution--it is stronger for the reason that it may be an unwritten const.i.tution.

The cellars and granaries of Mecklenburg were full to overflowing. But there the thing ended, until one day the screws were put on by the Imperial German government. The Mecklenburgers had been good war-loan buyers, however. Hard-headed farmers often prefer direct methods.

In Westphalia they had similar food islands, and from Osnabruck to the North Sea victuals had generally to be pried loose with a crowbar. There the farmer was the peasant of the good old type; he was generally a hard person to deal with. It was shown that while he did not mind being cla.s.sed as low-caste--_Bauernstand_--he also had cultivated a castal independence. He would doff his cap to the government official, and all the time resolve the firmer not to let his crops get out of his hands in a manner not agreeable to him.

Pa.s.sive resistance is too much for any government, no matter how absolute and strong it may be. It can be overcome only by cajolery.

The clandestine food-buyer had better luck, of course. He knew how to impress and persuade the thickhead, and then made the dear general public pay for this social accomplishment, which may be as it should be.

He also frustrated the plan of the government. Pennies so mobilized did not always go into war loans.

To the men in high places this was not unknown, of course. They realized that something would have to be done soon or late to put this department of war economics on a smooth track. Appeals not to h.o.a.rd and not to speculate in the interest of the nation were all very well, but they led to nothing.

Still, it would not do to undertake the major operation on the vitals of the socio-economic organism which alone could set matters right. More doctoring was done during the summer of 1916. Those who did it were being misled by the will-o'-the-wisp of a good crop prospect.

In August of that year I had an interview with Dr. Karl Helfferich, the first German food-dictator. He was averse just then to more food regulation. He had done wonders as it was. Everybody knew that, though he was most modest about it. More regulation of the economic machine seemed undesirable to him. He did not want to wholly unmake and remodel the industrial and commercial organism of the state, and preliminary crop reports were such that further interference seemed unnecessary at that moment.

As it was, the rye crop of Germany met expectations. Wheat fell short, however, Oats were good, but the potatoes made a poor showing, as did a number of other crops that year.

Crop returns in Austria were disappointing on the whole. The spring had been very wet and the summer unusually dry. When the harvesting season came a long rainy spell ruined another 10 per cent. of the cereals.

Potatoes failed to give a good yield. In Hungary the outlook was equally discouraging, and reports from the occupied territories in Poland, Serbia, and Macedonia showed that what the "economic troops" and occupation forces had raised would be needed by the armies.

To fill the cup of anxiety to the brim, Roumania declared war. The several governments had made arrangements to give furlough to as many farm-workers as possible, that the crops might be brought in properly.

The entry of Roumania into the war made that impossible. And the moment for entry had been chosen well indeed. By reason of its warmer climate, Roumania had been able to harvest a good three-quarters of her crops by August, and the Indian corn could be left to the older men, women, and children to gather. But in the Central states it was different. Much of the wheat had been harvested, and some rye had also been brought in, but the bulk of the field produce, upon which the populations depended for their nourishment, was still in the fields.

I have never experienced so gloomy a time as this. There was a new enemy, and this enemy was spreading all over Transylvania. The shortage of labor was greater than ever before, with the weather more unfavorable.

What the conditions in Austria and Hungary were at that time I was able to ascertain on several trips to the Roumanian front. Cereals that should have been under roof long ago were standing in the fields, spilling their kernels when rain was not rotting them. Those who were left to reap struggled heroically with the huge task on their hands, but were not equal to it. If ever the specter of famine had stalked through the Central states, those were the days.

All this left the food shark undisturbed. He laid hands on all he could and was ready to squeeze hard when the time came.

VI

THE h.o.a.rDERS

The fact that business relations in Central Europe are very often family and friendship affairs was to prove an almost insuperable obstacle in government food regulation. It led to the growth of what for the want of a better term I will call: The food "speak-easy."

The word _Kundschaft_ may be translated into English as "circle of customers." The term "trade" will not fit, for the reason that relations between old customers and storekeeper are usually the most intimate. The dealer may have known the mother of the woman who buys in his shop. He may have also known her grandmother. At any rate, it is certain that the customer has dealt at the store ever since she moved into the district.

Loyalty in Central Europe goes so far that a customer would think twice before changing stores, and if a change is made it becomes almost a matter of personal affront. The storekeeper will feel that he has done his best by the customer and has found no appreciation.

Not versed in the ways of Europe, I had several experiences of this peculiarity.

While in Vienna I used to buy my smoking materials of a little woman who kept a tobacco "_Traffic_" on the Alleestra.s.se. I did not show up when at the front, of course, and, making many such trips, my custom was a rather spasmodic affair. The woman seemed to be worried about it.

"It is very odd, sir, that you stay away altogether at times," she said.

"Is it possible that you are not satisfied with my goods? They are the same as those you get elsewhere, you know."

That was true enough. In Austria trade in tobacco is a government monopoly, and one buys the same brands at all the stores.

"I am not always in town," I explained.

I was to get my bringing-up supplemented presently. Those who know the Viennese will best understand what happened.

"You are a foreigner, sir," continued the woman, "and cannot be expected to know the ways of this country. May I give you a little advice?"

I said that I had never been above taking advice from anybody.

"You will get much better service from storekeepers in this country if you become a regular customer, and especially in these days. You see, that is the rule here. Smoking material, as you know, is already short, and I fear that in a little while there will not be enough to go around."

The tip was not lost on me, especially since I found that the woman really meant well. She had counted on me as one of those whom she intended to supply with smokes when the shortage became chronic, which it soon would be. And that she proposed doing because I was such a "pleasant fellow." After that I took pains to announce my departure whenever I had occasion to leave the city, and I found that, long after the "tobacco-line" was one of the facts of the time, the woman would lay aside for me every day ten cigarettes. My small trade had come to be one of the things which the woman counted upon--and she wanted no fickleness from me in return for the thought she gave my welfare.

What a food shortage would lead to under such conditions can be imagined. The storekeeper would look out for his regular customers, before any other person got from him so much as sight of the food.

The government regulations were less partial, however. The several food cards, with which would-be purchasers were provided, were intended to be honored on sight so long as the quota they stipulated was there.

The food "speak-easy" had its birth in this. The storekeeper would know that such and such customer needed sundry items and would reserve them.

The customer might never get them if she stood in line, so she called afterward at the back door, or came late of nights when the sign "Everything Sold" hung in the window.

Had this illicit traffic stopped there and then things would have been well enough. But it did not. Before very long it degenerated into a wild scramble for food for h.o.a.rding purposes.

As yet the several governments were not greatly interested in distribution methods that really were of service. The avenue from wholesaler to retailer was still open. The food cards were issued to the public to limit consumption, and the law paragraph quoted on them called attention to the fact that infraction of the regulations would be punished no matter by whom committed.

Most of the little coupons were half the size of a postage stamp, and so many of them were collected by a storekeeper in the course of a week that an army of men would have been needed if the things were to be counted. So the governments took a chance with the honesty of the retailers. That was a mistake, of course, but it was the only way.

There was at first no control of any sort over the quant.i.ties bought by the retailer. In fact, he could buy as much as he liked so long as the wholesaler did not have another friend retailer to keep in mind. The other retailer was doing business along the same lines, and could not be overlooked; otherwise there would be the danger of losing him as soon as the war was over; in those days it was still "soon."

The wholesaler maintained the best of relations with the retailer, despite the fact that he was of a superior cla.s.s. The two would meet now and then in the cafes, and there the somewhat unequal business friendship would be fostered over the marble-topped table.

The customer of the retailer was already h.o.a.rding food. The retailer tried to do all the business he could, of course, and in the pursuit of this policy bought from the wholesaler all he could possibly get for money or love.

[Ill.u.s.tration: Copyright by Underwood & Underwood, N. Y.

STREET SCENE AT EISENBACH, SOUTHERN GERMANY

From the villages and small towns is recruited sixty per cent. of the German army.]

Commission-men were licensed by the government, and when food regulation became a little more stringent they were obliged to make some sort of a slovenly report on the quant.i.ties they handled. But the government food commissions did not have the necessary personnel to keep close tally of these reports. This led to partial returns by the middlemen, a practice which entailed no particular risk so long as the government did not actually control and direct the buying of foodstuffs in the country and at the mills.

Business moved smartly as the result of this combination of circ.u.mstances. The wholesaler bought twice as much from the commission-man, and the latter had to buy, accordingly, in the country.

The maximum prices which the government set upon foods about to enter into possession of the consumer were invariably accompanied by minimum prices which the producer was to get. Reversely, the arrangement meant that the customer could not offer less for food than the government had decided he should pay, nor could the farmer or other producer demand more.

That was well enough in a way. The farmer was to get for a kilogram (2.205 pounds) of wheat not less than four and one-half cents, and the middleman selling to the mill could not ask more than five and one-half cents. Labor and loss in milling taken into consideration, the mill was to be satisfied with seven cents, while the consumer, so said the regulations, was to get his flour for eight and one-quarter cents per kilogram.

That was all very well, but it came to mean little in the end.