The great 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 not wonderful organisers.  The rationing was done about as badly as it could be done.  It was arranged in such a fashion as to produce plenty in some places and dearth in others.  It was done so that wealthy men made fortunes and poor men were made still poorer.  The inordinate greed and lack of real patriotism on the part of influential parties in both Germany and Austria-Hungary have added to the bad state of affairs.  As if to make matters