The Land of Deepening Shadow Part 13

Through the spring and early summer the people were officially buoyed up with the hope that the new harvest would make an end of their troubles. They had many reasons, it is true, to expect an improvement. The 1915 harvest in Germany had fallen below the average. Therefore, if the 1916 harvest would be better per acre, the additional supplies from the conquered regions of Russia would enable Germany to laugh at the efforts of her enemies to starve her out. Once more, however, official a.s.surances and predictions were wrong, and the economic condition grew worse through every month of 1916.

CHAPTER XIII

A LAND OF SUBSt.i.tUTES

The only food subst.i.tute which meets the casual eye of the visitor to England in war time is margarine for b.u.t.ter. Germany, on the contrary, is a land of subst.i.tutes.

Since the war, food exhibitions in various cities, but more especially in Berlin, have had as one of their most prominent features booths where you could sample subst.i.tutes for coffee, yeast, eggs, b.u.t.ter, olive oil, and the like. Undoubtedly many of these subst.i.tutes are destined to take their place in the future alongside some of the products for which they are rendering vicarious service. In fact, in a "Proclamation touching the Protection of Inventions, Designs, and Trade Marks in the Exhibition of Subst.i.tute-Materials in Berlin-Charlottenburg, 1916,"

it is provided that the subst.i.tutes to be exhibited shall enjoy the protection of the Law. Even before the war, subst.i.tutes like Kathreiner's malt coffee were household words, whilst the roasting of acorns for admixture with coffee was not only a usual practice on the part of some families in the lower middle cla.s.s, but was so generally recognised among the humbler folk that the children of poor families were given special printed permissions by the police to gather acorns for the purpose on the sacred gra.s.s of the public parks. To deal with meat which in other countries would be regarded as unfit for human consumption there have long been special appliances in regular use in peace time. The so-called _Freibank_ was a State or munic.i.p.al butcher's shop attached to the extensive munic.i.p.al abattoirs in Berlin, Munich, Cologne, and elsewhere. Here tainted meat, or meat from animals locally affected by disease, is specially treated by a steam process and other methods, so as to free it from all danger to health. Meat so treated does not, of course, have the nutritive value of ordinary fresh meat, but the Germans acted on the principle that anything was better than nothing. Such meat was described as _bedingt tauglich_ (that is, fit for consumption under reserve). It was sold before the war at very low rates to the poorer population, who in times of scarcity came great distances and kept long vigils outside the _Freibank_, to be near the head of the queue when the sale began. Thus we see that many Germans long ago acquired the habit of standing in line for food, which is such a characteristic of German city life to-day.

Horseflesh was consumed before the war in Germany, as in Belgium and France. Its sale was carefully controlled by the police, and severe punishment fell upon anyone who tried to disguise its character. An ordinary butcher might not sell it at all. He had to be specially licensed, and to maintain a special establishment or a special branch of his business for the purpose. Thus, when wider circles of the population were driven to resort to subst.i.tutes, there was already in existence a State-organised system to control the output.

Since the war began, sausage has served as a German stand-by from the time that beef and pork became difficult to obtain. In the late spring, however, the increased demand for sausage made that also more difficult to procure, and we often got a subst.i.tute full of breadcrumbs, which made the food-value of this particular _Wurst_ considerably less than its size would indicate. It was frequently so soft that it was practically impossible to cut, and we had to spread it on our bread like b.u.t.ter.

The subst.i.tute of which the world has read the most is war bread.

This differs in various localities, but it consists chiefly of a mixture of rye and potato with a little wheat flour. In Hungary, which is a great maize-growing country, maize is subst.i.tuted for rye.

Imitation tea is made of plum and other leaves boiled in real tea and dried.

To turn to subst.i.tutes other than food, it will be recalled that Germany very early began to popularise the use of benzol as an alternative to petrol for motor engines. This was a natural outgrowth of her marvellously developed coal-tar industry, of which benzol is a product. Prizes for the most effective benzol-consuming engine, for benzol carburettors, etc., have been offered by various official departments in recent years, and I am told that during the war ingenious inventions for the more satisfactory employment of benzol have been adopted. Owing to the increased use of potatoes as food, the alcoholic extract from them, always a great German and Austro-Hungarian industry, has had to be restricted.

It is an ill wind that blows n.o.body good, as I learned from the owner of a little general shop in a Brandenburg village. He told me that about twenty-five years ago, when kerosene became widely used in the village for illuminating purposes, he was left with a tremendous supply of candles which he could never sell. The oil famine has caused the subst.i.tution of candle light for lamp light during the war, and has enabled him to sell out the whole stock at inflated prices. All oils are at a premium. The price of castor-oil has risen fivefold in Germany, chiefly owing to the fact that it is being extensively used for aeroplane and other lubrication purposes.

But it is oil from which explosives are derived that chiefly interests Germany. Almost any kind of fruit stone contains glycerine. That is why notices have been put on all trains which run through fruit districts, such as Werder, near Berlin, and Baden, advising the people to save their fruit stones and bring them to special depots for collection.

Five pounds of fat treated with caustic soda can be made to yield one pound of glycerine. This is one reason, in addition to the British blockade, which causes the great fat shortage among the civil population.

Glycerine united with ammonium nitrate is used in the manufacture of explosives. Deprived of nitrogenous material from South America, Germany has greatly developed the process for the manufacture of artificial nitrates. She spent 25,000,000 pounds after the outbreak of war to enable her chemists and engineers to turn out a sufficient amount of nitric acid.

Toluol, a very important ingredient of explosives, is obtained from coal-tar, which Germany is naturally able to manufacture at present better than any other country in the world, since she bad practically a monopoly in coal-tar products before hostilities commenced.

Evidently, however, subst.i.tutes to reinforce goods smuggled through the blockade have not sufficed to meet the chemical demands of the German Government, for great flaming placards were posted up all over the Empire announcing the commandeering of such commodities as sulphur, sulphuric acid, toluol, saltpetre, and the like.

Germany long ago claimed to have perfected woodpulp as a subst.i.tute for cotton in propulsive ammunition. She made this claim very early, however, for the purpose of hoodwinking British blockade advocates. Her great need eventually led her to take steps to induce the United States to insist on the Entente Powers raising the blockade on cotton. She went to great trouble and expense to send samples by special means to her agents in America.

The cotton shortage began to be seriously felt early in 1916 in the manufacturing districts of Saxony, where so many operatives were suddenly thrown out of work that the Government had to set aside a special fund for their temporary relief, until they could be transferred to other war industries.

The success which Germany claimed for a cotton-cloth subst.i.tute has been greatly exaggerated. When the Germans realised that Great Britain really meant business on the question of cotton they cultivated nettle and willow fibre, and made a cloth consisting for the most part of nettle or willow fibre with a small proportion of cotton or wool.

It was boasted in many quarters that the exclusion of cotton would make but little difference so far as clothing was concerned. Not only does the universal introduction of clothing tickets falsify this boast, but the cloth is found to be a mere makeshift when tested. Blouses and stockings wear out with discouraging rapidity when made of the subst.i.tute.

My personal investigations still lead me to believe in the motto of the Sunny South that: "Cotton is king."

Paper, although running short in Germany, is the subst.i.tute for cloth in many cases. Sacking, formerly used for making bags in which to ship potatoes and other vegetables, has given way to it.

Paper-string is a good subst.i.tute widely used, although "no string"

was the verbal subst.i.tute I often got when buying various articles, and it was necessary for me to hold the paper on to the parcel with my hands.

The craze for subst.i.tutes has spread so extensively that there have been some unpleasant results both for the purchaser and the producer, as was the case with several bakers, who were finally detected and convicted of a liberal use of sawdust in their cakes.

Germany has worked especially hard to find a subst.i.tute for indiarubber, though with only moderate success. I know that the Kaiser's Government is still sending men into contiguous neutral countries to buy up every sc.r.a.p of rubber obtainable. In no other commodity has there been more relentless commandeering. When bicycle tyres were commandeered--the authorities deciding that three marks was the proper price to pay for a new pair of tyres which had cost ten--there was a great deal of complaining.

Nevertheless, without an excellent reason, no German could secure the police pa.s.s necessary to allow him to ride a bicycle. Those who did obtain permission to ride to and, from their work had to select the shortest route, and "joy-riding" was forbidden.

"Subst.i.tute rubber" heels for boots could be readily obtained until the late summer, but after that only with difficulty. They were practically worthless, as I know from personal experience, and were as hard as leather after one or two days' use.

Despite the rubber shortage, the Lower Saxon Rubber Company, of Hildersheim, does a thriving business in raincoats made from rubber subst.i.tutes. The factory is running almost full blast, all the work being done by women, and the finished product is a tribute to the skill of those in charge.

It is impossible to buy a real tennis hall in the German Empire to-day. A most hopeless makeshift ball has been put on the market, but after a few minutes' play it no longer keeps its shape or resiliency.

Germany has been very successful in the subst.i.tution of a sort of enamelled-iron for aluminium, bra.s.s, and copper. Some of the Rhenish-Westphalian iron industries have made enormous war profits, supplying iron chandeliers, stove doors, pots and pans, and other articles formerly made of bra.s.s to take the place of those commandeered for the purpose of supplying the Army with much-needed metals.

For copper used in electrical and other industries she claims to have devised subst.i.tutes before the war, and her experts now a.s.sert that a two-years' supply of copper and bra.s.s has been gathered from the kitchens and roofs of Germany. The copper quest has a.s.sumed such proportions that the roof of the historic, world-renowned Rathaus at Bremen has been stripped. Nearly half the church bells of Austria have found their way to the great Skoda Works.

Of course Germans never boast of the priceless ornaments they have stolen from Belgium and Northern France. They joyfully claim that every pound of copper made available at home diminishes the amount which they must import from abroad, and pay for with their cherished gold.

The authorities delight in telling the neutral visitors that they have found adequate subst.i.tutes for nickel, chromium, and vanadium for the hardening of steel. If that is really so, why does the _Deutschland's_ cargo consist mainly of these three commodities?

CHAPTER XIV

THE GAGGING OF LIEBKNECHT

Although Bismarck gave the Germans a Const.i.tution and a Parliament after the Franco-Prussian War as a sop for their sacrifices in that campaign, he never intended the Reichstag to be a Parliament in the sense in which the inst.i.tution is understood in Great Britain.

What Bismarck gave the Germans was a debating society and a safety-valve. They needed a place to air their theories and ventilate their grievances. But the Chancellor of Iron was very careful, in drawing up the plans for the "debating society," to see that it conferred little more real power on the nation's "representatives" than is enjoyed by the stump-speakers near Marble Arch in London on Sundays.

Many people in England and the United States of America, I find, do not at all understand the meaninglessness of German Parliamentary proceedings. When they read about "stormy sittings" of the Reichstag and "bitter criticism" of the Chancellor, they judge such things as they judge similar events in the House of Commons or the American House of Representatives. Nothing could be more inaccurate. Governments do not fall in Germany in consequence of adverse Reichstag votes, as they do in England. They are not the peopled Governments, but merely the Kaisers creatures. They rise and fall by his grace alone.

Even this state of affairs needs to be qualified and explained to the citizens of free countries. The Government is not a Cabinet or a Ministry.

_The German Government is a one-man affair. It consists of the Imperial Chancellor_. He, and n.o.body else, is the "Government,"

subject only to the All-Highest will of the Emperor, whose bidding the Chancellor is required to do.

The Chancellor, in the name of the "Government," brings in Bills to be pa.s.sed by the Reichstag. If the Reichstag does not like a Bill, which sometimes happens, it refuses to give it a majority. But the "Government" does not fall. It can simply, as it has done on numerous occasions, dissolve the Reichstag, order a General Election, _and keep on doing so indefinitely_, until it gets exactly the kind of "Parliament" it wants. Thus, though the Reichstag votes on financial matters, it can be made to vote as the "Government" wishes.

As I have said, the Reichstag was invented to be, and has always served the purpose hitherto of, a forum in which discontented Germany could blow off steam, but achieve little in the way of remedy or reform. _But during the war the Reichstag has even ceased to be a place where free speech is tolerated_. It has been gagged as effectually as the German Press. I was an eyewitness of one of the most drastic muzzling episodes which has occurred in the Reichstag during the war--or probably in the history of any modern Parliament--the suppression of Dr. Karl Liebknecht, member for Potsdam, during the debate on military affairs on January 17, 1916.

That event will be of historic importance in establishing how public opinion in Germany during the war has been ruthlessly trampled under foot.

The Reichstag has practically nothing to do with the conduct of the war.

Up, practically, to the beginning of 1916 the sporadic Social Democratic opposition to the war, mainly by Dr. Liebknecht, was ignored by the Government. The war-machine was running so smoothly, and, from the German standpoint, so victoriously, that the Government thought it could safely let Liebknecht rant to his heart's content.

Dr. Liebknecht had long been a thorn in the War Party's side. He inherited an animosity to Prussian militarism from his late father, Dr. Wilhelm Liebknecht, who with August Bebel founded the modern German Social Democratic Party. Four or five years before the war Liebknecht, a lawyer by profession, campaigned so fiercely against militarism that he was sentenced to eighteen months' fortress imprisonment for "sedition." He served his sentence, and soon afterwards his political friends nominated him for the Reichstag for the Royal Division of Potsdam, of all places in the world, knowing that such a candidature would be as ironical a blow as could be dealt to the war aristocrats. He was elected by a big majority in 1913, the votes of the large working-cla.s.s population of the division, including Spandau (the Prussian Woolwich), being more than enough to offset the military vote which the Kaiser's henchmen mobilised against him. Some time afterwards Liebknecht was also elected to represent a Berlin Labour const.i.tuency in the _Prussian Diet_, the Legislature which deals with the affairs in the Kingdom of Prussia, as distinct from the Reichstag (the _Imperial Diet_), which concerns itself with Empire matters only.