The gold hunt has revealed unexpected possessions in the hands of the German and Austrian lower classes.  To me it was pathetic to see an old woman tremblingly handing over treasures that had come down probably for two or three generations—­treasures that had never been worn except on high days and festivals, weddings, and perhaps on the day of the local fair.  Particularly sad is this self-sacrifice in view of the gigantic profits of the food usurers and war profiteers.  The matter is no secret in Germany or Austria.  It is denounced by the small Socialist minority in the Reichstag, to whose impotence I have often referred.  It is stoutly defended in good Prussian fashion by those openly making the profits.

There has arisen a one-sided Socialism which no one but Bismarck’s famous “nation of lackeys” would tolerate.  At the top is a narrow circle of agrarian and industrial profiteers, often belonging to the aristocratic classes.  At the other end of the scale is, for example, the small farmer, who has now absolutely nothing to say concerning either the planting, the marketing, or the selling of his crops.  Regulations are laid down as to what he should sow, where he should sell, and the price at which he should sell.  Unlike the Junker, he has not a long purse.  He must sell.

What state of mind does this produce among the people?  I know that outside Germany there is an idea that every German is working at top speed with the spirit of the Fatherland flaming him on.  That was the spirit I witnessed in the early days of the war, when Germany was winning and food was plentiful.

In certain rural districts as well as in centres of population there is an intense longing for peace—­not merely for a German peace—­but any peace, and a peace not merely for military reasons, but arising out of utter weariness of the rule of the profiteers and the casualties not revealed by the doctored lists—­ingeniously issued lists, which, for example, have never revealed the loss of a submarine crew, though intelligent Hamburg shipping people, who are in close touch with German naval people, estimate the loss of German submarines as at least one hundred.  I have heard the figure put higher, and also lower.

This kind of one-sided Socialism makes the people so apathetic that in some parts of Germany it has been very difficult to induce them to harvest their own crops, and in German Poland they have been forced to garner the fields at the point of the bayonet.

When a man has no interest in the planting, marketing, and selling price of his produce; when he knows that what he grows may be swept away from his district without being sure that it will be of any benefit to himself and his family; when, in addition, the father or sons of the households lie buried by the Yser, the Somme, the Meuse or the Drina, it is impossible for the authorities to inspire any enthusiasm for life, let alone war, even among so docile a people as those they deal with.