“For February the English statistics show an increase in the import value of unstated import quantity of all grain of 50 per cent., as against February, 1916.  This gives, taking the distribution among the various sorts of grain as similar to that of January, and reckoning with the rise in prices since, about the same import quantity as in the previous year.  But in view of the great decrease in American grain shipments and the small quantity which can have come from India and Australia the statement is hardly credible.  We may take it that March has brought a further decline, and that to-day, when we are nearing the time of the three-week stocks, the English supplies are lower than in the previous years.

“The English themselves acknowledge this.  Lloyd George stated in February that the English grain supplies were lower than ever within the memory of man.  A high official in the English Ministry of Agriculture, Sir Ailwyn Fellowes, speaking in April at an agricultural congress, added that owing to the submarine warfare, which was an extremely serious peril to England, the state of affairs had grown far worse even than then.

“Captain Bathurst, of the British Food Controller’s Department (Kriegsernaehrungsamt), stated briefly on April 19 that the then consumption of breadstuffs was 50 per cent. in excess of the present and prospective supplies.  It would be necessary to reduce the consumption of bread by fully a third in order to make ends meet.

“Shortly before, Mr. Wallhead, a delegate from Manchester, at a conference of the Independent Labour Party in Leeds had stated that, according to his information, England would in six to eight weeks be in a complete state of famine.

“The crisis in which England is placed—­and we can fairly call it a crisis now—­is further aggravated by the fact that the supplies of other important foodstuffs have likewise taken an unfavourable turn.

“The import of meat in February, 1917, shows the lowest figures for many years, with the single exception of September, 1914.

“The marked falling off in the butter imports—­February, 1917, showing only half as much as in the previous year—­is not nearly counterbalanced by the margarine which England is making every effort to introduce.

“The import of lard also, most of which comes from the United States, shows a decline, owing to the poor American crops of fodder-stuffs.  The price of lard in Chicago has risen from 151/2 cents at the beginning of January, 1917, to 211/2 cents on April 25, and the price of pigs in the same time from 9.80 to 16.50 dollars.

“Most serious of all, however, is the shortage of potatoes, which at present is simply catastrophic.  The English crop was the worst for a generation past.  The imports are altogether insignificant.  Captain Bathurst stated on April 19 that in about four weeks the supplies of potatoes in the country would be entirely exhausted.